The GUMP Process for Software Maintenance and Maintenance Education

Abstract

Software producing organizations attempt to improve their cost, schedule and quality performance by defining an organizational software process model. Educators try to teach their students the virtues of following such a process in software development and maintenance. But most software process models are proprietary so there are few readily available examples to help guide these efforts. This paper outlines the ‘Generic University of West Florida Maintenance Process (GUMP)’ which has been developed, used and refined over a period of almost two years in an educational setting. It describes the key maintenance process issues identified in this experience and the rationale for the solutions adopted in GUMP. As an academic tool, GUMP has greatly improved the learning experience in our project courses; two of our graduates have taken it as a starting point for developing a process for their employers. Full documentation for GUMP is publicly available on-line and may be copied and adapted as needed. GUMP is presented not as a ‘perfect’ process, but simply as a starting point that may be useful to either maintainers or educators as a point of reference for software process concepts.