Using risk analysis to manage software maintenance

Abstract

Software maintenance management can be improved through explicit consideration of the impact of maintenance efforts on project risk, maintainability risk and usability risks, including functionality, performance, financial and software failure risk. The paper illustrates how to analyse the effect of maintenance on software failure risk. I also show how risk analysis can guide important maintenance decisions: determining whether to redevelop software, prioritizing maintenance efforts, allocating resources and planning release schedules. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.