An Agile Approach Applied to Intense Maintenance Projects

Abstract

This paper proposes an approach to managing software projects that are susceptible to frequent and intense change requests demanding quick response time. Highly influenced by agile thinking, in particular, SCRUM, Kanban and Lean Software development, this solution directly captures the philosophy and the main techniques of these popular agile "methodologies". Moreover, it includes the use of specific measures to manage the project's health and give accurate information to the top level management. This proposal's focus is on improving and optimizing the maintenance process of large-scale information systems which daily handle the change requests of thousands of users. The application of this approach in a real study case allowed to obtain significant results that indicate the potential of the proposal.