International Journal of IT/Business Alignment and Governance, 4(1), 11-26, January-June 2013 11

Best Practices in Software

Maintenance Projects
Sanjay Mohapatra, Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar, Orissa, India

ABSTRACT
Maintenance of software projects is an important phase in software engineering. However, there are many
challenges associated during this maintenance phase, including technical and managerial. In order to reduce
the cost of maintaining software project, many such projects are being outsourced to low cost development
countries like India, Philippines, Russia or China. This paper talks about decision parameters for outsourcing
maintenance projects. However, outsourced maintenance projects have their own issues and challenges such
as poor domain knowledge, lack of understanding of application & technological knowledge and managerial
issues such as lack of motivation, attrition. To find solution to these issues, the research conducted study in
CMM level 5 organizations and based on case studies, developed an approach for addressing these issues
and challenges successfully. The best practices so identified (such as training the trainer, process oriented
systematic approach, developing a test strategy and involving end users during execution) can be adopted
in other organizations as well. It was observed that the best practices improved productivity while reducing
defects in the deliverables.

Keywords: Outsourcing, Software Development, Software Engineering, Software Maintenance, Software

Testing

INTRODUCTION by more strategic factors. To be competitive,

organisations need to drive innovation, enable
An organisation’s functional strategy and out- growth and increase flexibility. Outsourcing
sourcing strategy need to be fully aligned to the activities can help organisations become more
overall business strategy. Both the functional flexible and adaptive and react faster to chang-
strategy and corporate sourcing strategy will be ing markets. Before considering outsourcing
used to drive an aligned and effective functional options, an organization needs to ensure such
outsourcing outcome. The functional sourcing a strategy aligns with the overarching business
strategy will be implemented through lifecycle strategy. For example, organisations with an
planning and detailed phase-by-phase activity aggressive growth strategy may need a flexible
planning - this will be carried out on a cross sourcing option that can scale as the business
functional basis if appropriate. Traditionally, grows. Those companies that do not carefully
the motivation for outsourcing was to cut costs. test alignment may find themselves incurring
However, today the decision is influenced new costs, frustrating customers and losing

DOI: 10.4018/jitbag.2013010102

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12 International Journal of IT/Business Alignment and Governance, 4(1), 11-26, January-June 2013

market share. Sourcing decisions are often life cycle that corrects any fault that has been
made tactically and in isolation from long-term found while executing the present software.
business strategy. Organisations should estab- Lientz et al (1980) states that maintenance is
lish a sourcing strategy as an element of wider the activity that keeps operational computer
business strategy. This provides a frame against systems aligned with end user requirements.
which tactical sourcing decisions can be made. As per him during maintenance activities data
Outsourced software maintenance is the processing activities are not affected at all.
last phase in the software life cycle process. Also needs of all other stakeholders are taken
Software maintenance in software engineering care of while maintenance of software is being
is defined as the modification of a software carried out. Swanson (1976) moves toward a
product after delivery to correct faults, to wider view of maintenance in his definition:
improve performance or other attributes, or to “Systems maintenance is the activity associated
adapt the product to a modified environment with keeping operational computer systems
(ISO14764). The IEEE/EIA 12207 standard continuously in tune with the requirements of
for software life cycle processes describes the users, data processing operations, associated
software maintenance as the process of a soft- clerical functions, and external demands from
ware product undergoing modification to code government and other agencies”.
and associated documentation due to a problem The market for outsourcing services has
or the need for improvement. The objective is changed dramatically in recent years. What was
to modify the existing software product while an emerging phenomenon with great potential
preserving its integrity. is now a natural element of corporate services.
Software maintenance or sustenance, main- The value proposition and measures of success
tains or sustains the software product throughout for outsourcing operations is evolving. Leading
its operational cycle. Modification requests are organisations look to harness value beyond cost
logged and tracked throughout. The impact of reduction through consolidation, automation,
proposed modification requests is determined, and labour arbitrage to more commercial ben-
accordingly code and other artefacts are modi- efits including accessing and building capability,
fied, testing is performed, and finally a new scalability and flexibility to support business
point version (sometimes also called as patch) strategy. Today, technological advances,
of the software product is released. together with trends in privatisation, globali-
A common perception of maintenance sation and deregulation, are encouraging the
release is that it is merely about fixing bugs. emergence of alternatives to traditional business
However, studies and surveys have shown that models. Organisations employ a broad range of
the majority of the maintenance effort is used for service delivery models and techniques, includ-
non-corrective actions (Pigosky, 1997) which ing outsourcing, selective and hybrid models
are merely about explaining how a particular for core and support functions. The scope of
functionality or a feature works in the software. activities within an organisation’s value chain
Further, to add to this perception, most of the that can be performed by a vendor (outsourced
times users submit a bug or a problem which vendor) has grown as we continue to see new
are in reality, functionality enhancements to types of services being handled remotely and
the system. Boehm (1976) states that software across borders. In this context, it is important
maintenance ensures that the present version to identify the issues and challenges that have
of the software works as intended while the emerged in the recent past. This research, has
defects and bgs found in the applications attempted to identify these emerging challenges
are attended to. Mohapatra (2009), in his and find the practices that have helped in over-
book titled “Software Project Management”, coming these issues.
defines maintenance as a phase in software

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 International Journal of IT/Business Alignment and Governance, 4(1), 11-26, January-June 2013 13

KEY ISSUES WITH OFF- behavioural aspects need to be addressed. He

SHORED SOFTWARE reports that the maintenance projects should
MAINTENANCE PROJECTS take care of user needs well so as to consist of
amending the information provided to satisfy
IEEE/EIA 12207 identifies the primary activi- changing needs of end-users, removing redun-
ties of software maintenance as: problem and dant information processing, and encouraging
modification analysis; process implementation; usage of information perceived as underutilized
modification implementation; maintenance by the users Edwards notes that the organiza-
review/acceptance; migration; and retirement. tions in which the maintenance was successful,
Practically, Software Maintenance project end-user needs were satisfied, and the project
process consists of following phases as shown team worked in a cohesive manner. The project
in the Figure 1: resources clearly devoted to maintenance of user
needs thus satisfying project goals The team
1. Modification request (Entry); also had a defined communication channels,
2. Classification of Requests (Tasks); and had allocation of responsibility to improve
3. Impact Analysis (Tasks); accountability.
4. Implementation (Tasks); Arthur (1983) and Gopal et al. (2003) clas-
5. Regression Testing and (Verification); sified issues related to project management in
6. Release (Exit). maintenance projects into technology related,
people related, and organization (management)
However, there are number of issues related related. Martin (1983), Mathew (2006) and
to software maintenance project management. Hazel (2006), in separate studies, classified
Edwards (1980) through his research reports the features into management, organizational
that there are there are number of factors that structure, methodology, software, and hard-
affect maintenance project management. To ware. Features such as performance evaluation
be successful in project management in main- system and training program are listed under
tenance projects, not only technical but also “management.” End-user programming, pro-

Figure 1. Software maintenance life-cycle

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14 International Journal of IT/Business Alignment and Governance, 4(1), 11-26, January-June 2013

gramming assistant, independent test group, not well designed or understood. This makes it
etc., are categorized under “organizational difficult to identify the person who should be
structure.” Features including prototyping, contacted in case of escalation of an issue. In ad-
structured design and analysis, and structured dition, lack of well defined service level agree-
programming are under “methodology.” Such ment (SLA) leads to mismatch of expectations
features as database management system, data among customers and vendors. This becomes
dictionary, and report generator are listed under complicated if it leads to litigation later on.
“software.” Finally, online developmental en- After signing the initial contract, both the
vironment, and similar features are classified client and service provider have multiple team
under “hardware.” members who are trying to manage the initial
The National Bureau of Standards (1984), implementation activities and ongoing opera-
has provided guidelines for improving project tions. In the initial stage, when employees from
management aspects in software maintenance. both customers and vendors are in the learning
The guidelines are under three general catego- process, there could be communication gaps.
ries: controlling quality in software mainte- These gaps can lead to serious issues such as
nance, and improving productivity in software job security, attrition and legal issues.
maintenance. Under “improving productivity in With many outsourcing implementations,
software maintenance projects factors such as there is an outright lack of a defined governance
job rotation, and keeping the staff well trained, team that would monitor and control the progress
etc., are listed. Under “quality control”, fac- of outsourced activities. This causes issues in
tors such as following coding conventions or implementation because there is no one with
standards, usage of structured and modular effective monitoring parameters for checking
programming, effective documentation, etc., periodic progress of outsourced team. Custom-
are mentioned. ers expect that since they are outsourcing the
Donahue (1980) and Ewers et al (1981) work, the vendor will take care of everything
feel that training, effective resource alloca- and the client can “wash its hands” of ongoing
tion and usage of tools and coding standards management responsibilities, resulting in a lack
will improve effectiveness of management of of governance staff. In addition, the governance
software maintenance projects. As per these team may not have the right skills required for
researchers key issues related to outsourced the governance roles.
maintenance projects are because of these Outsourcing creates uncertainty for exist-
projects are intellectually very difficult (because ing employees and contractors who provide
the team member has to be knowledgeable both services to the customer. The uncertainty can
in technology and domain), lack of clarity as cause delay in delivery of the deliverables. Both
necessary information related to complexity of customers and vendors face this problem and
bugs reported are not available, lack of proper strategies and policies need to be defined as a
documentation during development phase proactive measure. There could also be issues
which makes it difficult to assess the impact with culture clashes between a customer and
of system failures. After outsourcing, there is vendor work culture. The mismatch can be
a lack of understanding of post-contract pro- at two levels, the customer and vendor may
cesses between vendor and organization that have different norms in terms of speed, style,
has outsourced its processes. The results are decision making and organizational structure.
that services aren’t performed to the expectation Another aspect of potential corporate culture
levels, implementation activities get delayed clash is that outsourcing represents a commer-
and there is frustration among stakeholders. cial relationship between two separate entities.
Sometimes, the entire schedule for achieving Sometimes both organizations can take extreme,
expected business benefits are delayed. There inflexible positions that serve to create tension
are situations when communication protocol is or distrust. In addition, national/regional culture,

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 International Journal of IT/Business Alignment and Governance, 4(1), 11-26, January-June 2013 15

language and lack of understanding of verbal, Testing

non-verbal and written communications can
be problematic. Also, expectations regarding How much to test? The cost of full testing on
the level of open debate, acknowledgement of a major piece of software can be expensive in
potential problems, and willingness to veer from terms of time and money. Regression testing and
the defined process in order to complete work selective retesting of a software component to
may vary between regions and nationalities. verify that the modifications have not caused
Therefore, as is evident from literature unintended effects is very important in main-
survey, issues and challenges faced during tenance projects. Many times, it is challenging
project execution at offshore have well been to coordinate tests on testbeds when different
studied. But the issues and challenges faced by members of the maintenance team are working
a vendor is limited and has not been discussed on different problems at the same time. Hence
in details. Even though it can be argued that automation testing plays an important role for
there could be some overlap between issues maintenance release projects as it can reduce
and challenges at project and vendor organi- the time of the entire lifecycle by running tests
zation levels, still a detailed study only from 24/7 basis.
vendor perspective have not been reported.
We also found that vendor organizations face Organization Structure
different problems for outsourced maintenance
projects and the magnitude as well a nature The maintenance team (once software is opera-
of these challenge vary from that of project tional in the field) and the team that developed
level issues and challenges. These problems the software are not necessarily same. The deci-
are related to clear definition of service level sion of having separate software maintenance
agreements for solving the reported problems function team or not depends on priorities and
and mismatch of expectations from customer process within the software engineering orga-
and service provider. nizations. What is important is the delegation
In summary, outsourced software main- or assignment of the maintenance responsibility
tenance projects provide unique technical and to a single group or person, regardless of the
management challenges. One of the challenges organization’s structure. One of the challenges
is to identify resources who can work on soft- in maintenance projects is to attract and keep
ware containing 500K lines of code that the software engineers. Maintenance is often not
software engineer did not develop. Planning for viewed as glamorous work. As a result, software
a future release, while coding the next mainte- maintenance personnel are frequently viewed
nance release and also sending out emergency as second-class citizens and morale therefore
patches for the current release to the customers suffers. Hence, frequent movement of these
makes the entire process challenging. The main engineers to different projects within the or-
challenges in software maintenance projects are ganization keeps the attrition low
shown in the following sections.
Off-Shoring
Limited Knowledge Outsourcing is a major industry. Many large
How quickly a software engineer can understand enterprises are outsourcing entire portfolio of
the software application and make a change or software systems, including software mainte-
a correction in software which he or she did not nance. To reduce the risk, often the outsourcing
develop. Research indicates that nearly 40% to option is selected for less mission-critical soft-
60% of the effort is spent on understanding the ware product. The challenge for the outsourcers
software to be modified is to determine the scope of the maintenance

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16 International Journal of IT/Business Alignment and Governance, 4(1), 11-26, January-June 2013

services required, coming up with Service to face interview using check list questionnaire
Level Agreement (SLA), outsourcer adhering method. This was done so as not to restrict the
to the process and objective of the organiza- respondents to limited answers rather provide
tion and smooth transitioning of the work to a holistic framework for solutions.
the outsourcer. The selection of organizations was based
The contribution of this study is in iden- on different criteria such as – availability of
tifying key issues and challenges faced by a stakeholders for interview, similar sized or-
vendor organization while executing software ganizations (where employee strength were
projects. Different issues and challenges have between 700 to 1000), minimum of one-third
been studied and based on case studies, an ap- of the annual revenue was from outsourced
proach has been discussed to tackle these issues maintenance projects and they had high process
and challenges at organization level. maturity. These projects had team strength
between 15 to 20 employees and were being
executed for at least fifteen months. The time
RESEARCH OBJECTIVE period was defined so that different defined
processes would have been implemented and
Available literature pointed to different issues
stabilized over a period of time. This gave
and challenges that outsourced maintenance
similar level playing fields for all the teams. All
projects have to face. The issues have been
the organizations should have been assessed at
discussed in the previous section. However, the
CMMi level five meaning these organizations
existing literature does not discuss these issues
are following similar guidelines from SEI (www.
and challenges at vendor organization level and
sei.cmu.edu) for defining and implementing
no solutions to these issues have been elabo-
processes. This ensures similar processes be-
rated. For example, literature explains the issue
ing followed for activities such as recruitment,
lack of motivation of team members. But how to
training, performance appraisal, production etc.
increase motivation level has not been proposed.
and will have similar level playing field for
Job rotation can be one way of dealing with
all the organizations. As a result, our research
this issue; but in practice how do organizations
can find exact nature of solutions deployed by
handle this issue has not been dealt with. Same
these organizations in solving issues related
are the cases with knowledge, lack of testing
to maintenance projects as mentioned above.
time provided in the testing cycle, organization
Selection of project managers, delivery
structure. The researchers used this gap in the
managers and team members were done based
literature to study the solutions as practiced
on number of years of experience in execut-
by different organizations and come up with a
ing maintenance projects. It was decided that
framework that can be practiced and repeated
all interviewed persons should have at least
across companies. Hence, the research objec-
worked for three years in maintenance proj-
tive was to propose a solution framework for
ects and would have experience in more than
carrying out successful outsourced maintenance
two domains at the least (such as banking,
projects in the changing business dynamics.
insurance, healthcare etc.). This was done to
understand the nature of solution deployed for
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY issues related to motivation, limited knowledge,
and organization structure. Also since all these
The methodology adopted for research was organizations were carrying out maintenance
primary survey in which project managers, team projects in offshore mode, this criterion will help
members, delivery managers, HR managers and us understand the nature of solution deployed
customers were interviewed. Thus, all the stake- by these organizations.
holders in a typical maintenance project were Qualitative analysis was used to prepare
involved. Data collection was done through face the solution framework.

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 International Journal of IT/Business Alignment and Governance, 4(1), 11-26, January-June 2013 17

DATA COLLECTION and professionals with successful senior level

experience in diverse industries.
Total 120 persons were interviewed in three ABCsoft is committed to participate in the
different organizations over a period of seven education space as a provider of end-to-end
months. These persons (Table 1 shows category services in the realm of strategy, academic
role wise number of persons interviewed in excellence and pervasive technology enable-
three different organizations) were from differ- ment. Their flagship product is Greycells - a
ent roles as explained above and were actively highly powerful, technology agnostic, and scal-
involved in project management processes as able ERP, specifically designed for education
necessitated by their roles. Details about the institutes. Greycells integrated with Learning
organizations are explained in the next section. Management System (LMS) proves to be a sig-
At the request of management, names of the nificant tool which assures an institution to im-
organizations have been withdrawn; however, prove its academic processes and take pedagogy
details about their business models have been to newer levels. Over the past couple of years
provided for better understandings. Tables 2 ABCsoft has made an important contribution
through 10 show the questionnaire that was to in creating holistic centers of excellence out
used for collecting data. The questionnaires of education sector by successfully implement-
were submitted to the project manager who was ing innovations that seamlessly mesh a string
the contact person for gathering data. Sensitive of excellence oriented learning solutions with
data related to customer’s name was masked to efficiency focused process orientation.
guard the confidentiality of information. The They also help their education sector clients
questionnaire format has been given below. to improve the sustainability of their business
models by advising in course selection, financial
planning and strategic planning for imminent
FINDINGS (CASE STUDIES) global competition. They work along with their
client during ideation stage of an institution,
This section deals with findings from each
assist them in establishment and keep their con-
organization and analysis section will dal with
tinuing support for process improvements once
our proposed solution framework.
the academics start. Their e-Learning practice
ABC Software Pvt. Ltd. & value enhancers for institutes, in association
with a few national and international partners,
ABC Software Pvt. Ltd. (ABCsoft) is a young aim at bridging the gap between academic
and entrepreneurial organization committed to yield and industry requirement. In addition to
create a sustainable competitive edge for edu- education sector, ABCsoft has also created a
cation institutes through innovative and need- space for itself in the realm of e-government
centric management and technology solutions. over the past few years, especially in the health
The company is promoted by “edu-preneurs” and defense sectors. They see this as an engine

Table 1. Role wise persons interviewed

Organization Delivery Managers Project Managers Team Members

ABC Software 3 11 21 35
ASSPL 3 12 25 40
ASM Technologies 5 14 26 45
Total 120

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18 International Journal of IT/Business Alignment and Governance, 4(1), 11-26, January-June 2013

Table 2. Respondent information

Name:
Project:
Address:
State/Province: Postcode:
Country: Fax:
Telephone: E-mail:

Table 3. Effort

Effort is measured in man months (Work carried out from requirement specification phase to customer delivery).
Total effort in months:
Total duration in months:
Stages Activity (months) Review (months) Rework (months)
Requirements gathering
and analysis
Design
Test plan preparation
Coding
Testing

Table 4. Process infrastructure

What is the domain in which your application is being developed?

Banking: Insurance: Utilities:
Other:
How would you rate your project against levels available in CMM or CMMi?
Rating:

Table 5. Project management

What are the issues faced by you in estimating maintenance requests?

How do you train all the team members? Do you use train the trainer concept?

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 International Journal of IT/Business Alignment and Governance, 4(1), 11-26, January-June 2013 19

Table 6. Client support

How would you rate availability of reusable modules for your project? Please rate as 1 if there was no availability
and 7 if all the modules required for programming were available.
Rating:
How would you rate the support provided by client? If there was no support from client, please rate it as 1 and if
the best support was provided, rate it as 7.
Rating:

Table 7. Application complexity

How would you rate your project for complexity of application being developed? If the application had complex
functionalities, please rate it as 10 and if it was a simple application, please rate it as 1.
Rating:

Table 8. Defects

How many Defects were identified (Test Defect & Review Defect) during various phases (Requirement to
Implementation) in your application Development?
Total number of defects:

Table 9. Composition of team

What was the experience of team members in the area of domain at the time they joined the project?
Total number of man months of experience:
What was the experience of team members in software technology?
Total number of man months of experience:

Table 10. Training effort

How many hours of training was attended by each member including that attended before joining this project?
Technology training in months:
Domain training in months:
In your view, which training is more important: Domain specific training or technology based training?

of growth and are keenly interested to be part dozen successful case studies to cite and many
of the fast growing Private-Public-Partnership satisfied partners to boast of.
initiatives that are expected to dot the national Total revenue earned from maintenance
and global landscape. They have more than a projects during financial year 2007-08 was

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20 International Journal of IT/Business Alignment and Governance, 4(1), 11-26, January-June 2013

more than 40% of their annual revenue. The code, higher quality and academic attainment
organization had entered into contact with its of workers in the foreign locations like India.
customers for maintaining applications that have The organization has a mix of services offered to
been installed at their sites. All these applica- their clients. During the period of research data
tions were developed and installed by ABCsoft, collection (Financial Year 2006-2007 and Fi-
but the team maintaining the applications was nancial year 2007-08), more than 45% projects
different than that of development team. The were executed which followed maintenance life
maintenance team was located at a different cycle. The organization has developed different
place than that of development team, which parameters such as profitability, onsite-offshore
made the communication between the two teams ratio of team members, complexity involved
formal and had to follow a particular protocol in the applications to be serviced, the time re-
(communication protocol). quired to turn around the defects that have been
The researchers held number of face to reported, which are used for deciding whether
face interviews with project managers and team to offshore a maintenance project. ASSPL also
members who were part of maintenance team. offers a collaborative approach to software so-
It was found that the management first decided lutions, which helps its customers in building
on the profitability the solution that really fits their need. One of
the key aspects of building right solution has
ASSPL Pvt. Ltd. been in selecting the right technical platform.
The “Technology Selection” is driven by their
ASSPL was founded in 1998, by industry experts business needs, which makes it sustainable.
with wide international exposure. Currently, it At ASSPL, the Project Managers have
has over 1000 person-years of experience and is diverse roles. Their most significant activities
continuing to grow rapidly. ASSPL’s capabilities are project planning, estimating and scheduling.
and offerings are enhanced by its local pres- Planning and estimation are iterative processes.
ence in Europe and North America to provide They continue throughout the project. The proj-
business, technical and strategic support to our ect managers revise the plans and schedules,
clients located there. It has offices in Wixom, as more information is available. The project
MI, which provides the local interface in North managers when planning a project establish a
America. It also has offices in UK, which caters series of milestones such that a milestone is a
to the local client needs of Europe. With their recognizable end-point of a software process
international exposure and understanding of activity. It is a predictable outcome of an activity
the business environment in North America where the formal report of progress is presented
and Europe, there is a smooth integration in to the management. The milestones represent
terms of work culture and expectations, which the end of a distinct, logical stage in the project.
is the backbone of Global Delivery Model. The Project scheduling involves the creation of
success of their delivery model is seen from the various graphical plan representations of part of
fact that over 60% of their customers have been project plan. Also, the project managers identify
referred by existing customers. the major project risks. They establish their
In ASSPL, offshoring of IT Services probability and consequences for the project.
continues to be the focus of attention in busi- The Project managers in ASSPL make plans
ness and technology management circles. The to avoid, manage or deal with the likely risks
reasons for this can be due to lower cost of if or when they arise. The risks are explicitly
operations, higher scalability, fast-changing discussed at each project progress meeting.
industries, core-process focus, and economic One of the major contributors to the suc-
downturn, fewer errors per thousand lines of cess in all the projects (including maintenance

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 International Journal of IT/Business Alignment and Governance, 4(1), 11-26, January-June 2013 21

projects) undertaken by ASSPL is for everyone product components and the risk associated with
involved to accept the discipline of common it. The project manager in consultation with
set of project goals, processes and procedures. the quality assurance manager plans this at the
This makes the sharing of information easier, time of the project kick off. This review plan is
particularly when working across different continuously monitored and updated. In case of
sites and countries. This makes performance less critical and low risk items, they normally
predictable and sustainable. The fundamental adopt review approaches like code walkthrough,
processes for all the maintenance projects are: where the reviewer inspects the code against
Project conception: Project definition: Project the specifications or design documents. In case
planning: Project launch and Execution: Project of more critical and high risk applications, they
closure: Post Project Evaluation. The entire adopt more formal group review approach like
project cycle is sub-divided into vertical seg- group review (as per CMMI process guideline).
ments, called “slices” wherein each slice is a In order to align the information needs of the
deliverable. Each slice is integrated with each management with the organization-wide mea-
other with clearly defined conditions for entry, surement objectives, quantitative management
exit conditions. These slices are done up-front, techniques are used by defining metrics to be
meaning done at the beginning of the project. measured. A few of the prime metrics along with
These slices are vertical, and the most granular the goals are mentioned in Table 11. This helps
level. These slices are modular so that each slice in lowering total cost of ownership and increases
can be developed independent of other. These total benefits of ownership. It brings in more
slices contain codes that represent features. predictability into the software development
This helps in the case of schedule slippage, in process thus ensuring improvement on future
which case delivery of certain functionality deliverables. This review or validation process
can be differed. These slices would take few tests every angle of the software applications
days to complete. that are the backbone of the customer’s business
Complete testing of the slices is carried out thus making them reliable.
during each iteration of maintenance life cycle. The approach ensures total customer satis-
This methodology facilitates better risk man- faction, thus building up of lasting relationship
agement, better control on the project schedule with our customers and more referrals (60% of
through better monitoring and early corrective the customers are referral based).
actions and better requirements management
in an incremental mode. This methodology ASM Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
facilitates requirement evolution during main-
tenance life cycle as well as helps in managing ASM Technologies was established in the year
larger projects. 1998 with two people and one vision. Since
The project review approach at ASSPL then they have grown to an empire of 1000
is decided depending on the criticality of the people who are part of business model which

Table 11. Quantitative management

Metrics Goals
Minimize cost (in terms of effort) over-run Effort Variance
Timeliness in delivery Schedule Variance
Improve product quality Defect Density
Improve the level of process compliance Process Compliance index

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22 International Journal of IT/Business Alignment and Governance, 4(1), 11-26, January-June 2013

provides support business requirement like Data lems by using statistical tools such as Pareto
management starting from to its analysis and Analysis, strengthening priorities like simula-
derivation, Energy management applications, tion and training, applying quantitative project
Application integration with customer, Process management to deliver solutions on time and
re-engineering, Relationship management, En- on budget. The consciousness for quality in
ergy delivery and trading systems, Information projects and products has been refined in the
management portals, Project monitoring and process of ISO and CMMI certification. The
Process automation to name a few. software development and maintenance pro-
The delivery process encompasses a cesses are formalized through a set of quality
flexible system of activities which range procedures. ASM’s Software quality assurance
from Competency Assessment and Training (CSQA) consists of a means of monitoring these
Roadmap, Implementation Strategy and As- software engineering processes and reviewing
sessment, System Architecture Design Review, their progress against set project goals. It is
Application Architecture Design Review, distinct from software quality control which
System Installation and Configuration, De- includes reviewing requirements documents,
ployment Readiness. Each of these activities is and software testing. CSQA encompasses the
individually analysed and addressed minutely entire software development and maintenance
with the clients. A mutually aggressive business process, which includes processes such as soft-
relationship is the resultant of this customized ware design, coding, source code control, code
approach. During the time of research, most of reviews, change management, configuration
these applications were already developed and management, bug fixing and release manage-
have entered into the maintenance phase. Almost ment. Regular and effective training ensures that
650+ employees were engaged in maintaining global delivery model can use skilled resources
different applications. These applications were and highly qualified and trained resources are
either developed by ASM or they were devel- available in different domains. The process is
oped by other vendors and were handed over also well defined in terms of roles and respon-
to ASM for maintaining them. sibilities of different resources at offshore and
ASM, in order to meet the challenge, onsite. Table 12 shows different activities that
trained personnel for acquiring and enriching are done at offshore and onsite.
themselves with new technologies. The review
process helps them to monitor the training
effectiveness During interview, the project ANALYSIS
managers felt that their innovative Process
Based on the findings from interviews conducted
Monitoring System (PMS) gives a thorough
with team members from three organizations, a
insight to each of the undergoing jobs and
framework could be developed for maintenance
helps in quality checks. The delivery system
projects. Figure 2 shows the pictorial representa-
is concurrent with the quality measures thus
tion of the framework. A maintenance project
ensuring the final product having scope for
is first decided on its off-shorability based on
growth and flexibility.
following factors – criticality of the application,
ASM’s process in achieving quality is
complexity of the application and profitability.
to set standards from customer’s perspective
A critical application is to be made available to
and then work forward to achieve it. The ap-
the customers round the clock. Such business
proach was to doing things right the first time,
critical applications are required to be serviced
conforming to specifications for products or
by the vendor immediately so that business
services, correcting the root cause of the prob-

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 International Journal of IT/Business Alignment and Governance, 4(1), 11-26, January-June 2013 23

Table 12. Roles and responsibilities for maintenance and production support

Services Client Site Locations Offshore Locations

Client interaction
Interviews Reviews Background research & information support.
Goal-Setting
Maintenance
Gathering Requirements, Detailed Requirements analysis, Architecture Design,
A high level High-level Design, & Prototype building, Code
Requirements analysis Development
Testing & Integration Extended UAT support, UAT
Testing & Integration UAT
Defect fixing
Implementation Implementation Change Mgmt& Implementation support
Production Support Implementation & UAT support

users will get uninterrupted availability of bug fixing. Since the application is complex,
the functionalities from the application. The the required involvement of the customers will
degree of criticality will determine whether be higher also. Such situations warrant that
the maintenance activities need to be carried complex applications are serviced at client
at the client site or at offshore location. Highly site. Figure 2 represents a decision matrix for
critical applications need to be serviced at the offshoring maintenance projects. This matrix
onsite. Similarly, a complex application needs has been modelled based on parameters and
constant interaction with the business users for processes used in all the three organizations
maintenance. This is because, the maintenance in study.
team needs to interact with the business users At first organization deploys its mainte-
to for resolutions to their queries related to nance team at onsite for maintaining applica-

Figure 2. Decision making matrix to offshore projects

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24 International Journal of IT/Business Alignment and Governance, 4(1), 11-26, January-June 2013

tions that are critical from business point of view utilization, meeting service level agreements).
and hence requires constant interaction with Also to be profitable, while maintaining less
customers. For product enhancement, feature critical and less complex applications, offshor-
enhancements, offshoring have been found to ing is recommended. End user training needs
be profitable in all the three organizations. For to be carried out at client site rather than using
complex applications, the respondents preferred web-seminar or video conferencing. This helps
the team to be near the customer location to to solve many unforseen design and coding
facilitate early and correct resolution their related problems as the end users can provide
queries. Small applications, product feature details about specific business scenario which
enhancement, web enabling of old systems were not captured during requirement analy-
and applications, testing of custom applica- sis. Similarly, maintenance of infrastructure
tions and maintenance of steady state support applications would be well supported by team
projects have been found to be effective (here stationed near the customer site; this fact has
effective has been described by project manag- been proven by both second and third organi-
ers as good monitoring and control, resource zations as many of their infrastructure related

Table 13. Solution framework for meeting challenges in software maintenance projects

Systematic process oriented approach: It is mandated to review the requirements and figure out the best place at a
high level for the bug fixing or functionality change that has been requested to make. Many requirements are pretty
specific about this, such as capturing postal code for each consumer or the need to capture the phone number on the
registration form etc. For all such requests, having a map of the site or application, will improve compliance to defined
process, improve documentation, and reduce chances of future rework, setting the correct expectation from the customer.
Train the trainer: The approach of train the trainer helps to create a trainer pool who then turn the next level of team
members. This reduces time, makes most of on the job training and more often creates induction training materials for
new employees. The training materials, since have been prepared by team members, are easily understood easily; in
two organizations, these training have been converted to e-learning module with online assessment, making it highly
productive, self spaced learning practice. This reduces the learning curve and makes the new employees productive
faster than the traditional class room training approach.
Involving business users: Once the impact assessment is done and the team has found a place for the change (if it
is an existing page or screen), then the code related to that page must be examined closely, by clicking on links and
push buttons. Even though this may seem basic, but pieces of functionality and content don’t often work the way it
is required to and this approach saves a lot of time in terms of productivity. Often, there are secret conditions and
corporate political issues that have not been tested before. These, of course, won’t be written down anywhere and
could be one off conditions in business scenario. The best way for the maintenance team is to cultivate a friendship
and amicable relationship with the business users who know this information.
Test Strategy: Both quality and productivity are at stake in maintenance project in addition to adherence to Service
Level Agreement. It will be good if the teams carry out Unit testing of the code that has been repaired followed by
regression testing to understand impact on other code as well. This reduces time compared to traditional testing cycle,
where the code has to be tested for Integration Testing and System testing before being moved to Acceptance testing.
Project Monitoring: In maintenance project, estimation and resource allocation has been found to be accurate and
effective, when simple excel or Microsoft Access based tools have been used for estimation and resource allocation.
This has been the practice in all the three organizations researched, because over a period of time, the maintenance
teams have standardized error codes, and based on the request, the tool would allocate one of the error code and
the competent resource to close the request. Not only this approach has reduced project management effort, but has
brought in consistency and predictability in servicing the customers.
Knowledge Database: As the error codes are standardized, so also solutions to these errors are also standardized.
This helps in reducing turnaround time and increases productivity as well as team members can be freed up to address
new requests. All the three organizations have created knowledge database with proper indexing and meta-data that
help in searching for solutions for a particular service request and error code. Also, this knowledge database is ever
increasing with new contributions from team members as they encounter new requests.

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 International Journal of IT/Business Alignment and Governance, 4(1), 11-26, January-June 2013 25

maintenance activities have been well rewarded Employee Benefits

by the customers.
Offshoring also brings its own issues and Increase in productivity, with better work life
challenges. These challenges are related to proj- balance as the team resources have free time to
ect management and have been dealt in details handle all other issues. Increased motivation and
in Introduction section. The other issues were involvement in project processes, help reduce
motivation issues among employees, work- employee attrition. Low attrition reduces cost
life balance, effective domain and technology related to training new employees and making
related training, mapping of the skill set to them project worthy. Customer satisfaction
the requirement, foreseeing competency level increases repeat business for the organization.
required (technology and domain related) for All these benefits have already been found
new projects, estimating for new maintenance to be prevalent in the three organizations, where
requests, lack of process orientation, rework on research was carried out. Hence, the frame-
bug fixes. During research, it was found that the work based approach is sustainable and can be
best way to address these issues and challenges emulated by other organizations carrying out
is to make a holistic approach as shown in Table maintenance activities.
13. The elements of the approach have already
been tried in these three organizations where
study was conducted and hence can be tried in CONCLUSION
other organizations as well with fair amount of
The research attempted to find issues and chal-
confidence. By using this approach, the three
lenges faced by a vendor organization while
organizations in question have been success-
executing software maintenance projects. These
ful with high customer satisfaction and repeat
issues were categorized as project management
business from the same customer.
issues (resource allocation, estimation), work-
life balance, low motivation level, inadequate
BENEFITS and ineffective training sessions and lack of
process orientation. The study shows tried and
If we look at the benefits of the proposed tested approach (used in three different organi-
framework, we find different stakeholders are zations) for addressing issues and challenges
benefited differently (in a positive direction). related to maintenance projects. The approach is
Different stakeholders are customers and scalable and can be used in other organizations
employees. carrying out maintenance projects at offshore.

Customer Benefits
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