Good software engineering is hard, but good software engineering management is much harder.
Ask anyone who has been on a software project where more than one person was involved, you will be told the same: one person coding is easy but team-based software engineering is hard. I would say it is often not because there are no best practices in existence that people can follow. But instead, it’s because people don’t follow them.
How to get Engineers to follow the best practices? It takes good Software Engineering Managers. A good Software Engineering Manager will instill a culture of deliverying quality engineering work in the team; a good Software Engineering Manager will establish a good SDLC process and stick to it; a good Software Engineering Manager knows how to motivate his team; and a good Software Engineering Manager knows the importance of effective communications and encourages / facilitates them.
Unfortunately, these good Software Engineering Managers are hard to come by these days …