Software maintenance productivity measurement: how to assess the readiness of your organisation
Alain April, Alain Abran, Reiner R. Dumke · 2004
Software maintenance constitutes an important part of the total cost of the lifecycle of software. Some even argue this is the most important fraction of the cost (50-80 percent according to Tony Scott [14], 75% according to Rand P. Hall [5]). The added value of software maintenance is often not fully understood by the customer leading to a perception that software maintenance organizations are costly and inefficient. A common view of maintenance is that it is merely fixing bugs. However, studies over the years have indicated that in many organizations the majority, over 80%, of the maintenance effort is dedicated to value added activities (Sommerville[15], Pressman[13], Pigoski[12]). To improve customer perceptions of software maintenance it is important to provide them with better insights into the activities performed by the maintenance organization and to document such performance with objective measures of software maintenance activities. In this paper the prerequisites for Software Maintenance productivity analysis are described with the use of the experiences at the Bahrain Telecommunications Company (Batelco) during the years 2001-2. First the differences between software maintenance activities and IS development projects are described. Then a basic trend model is applied as well as ways to manage the expectations of the customers. To conclude, some remarks are made regarding the application of productivity analysis for the software maintenance managers.