Software maintenance management strategies: observations from the field

There is much literature describing software maintenance process models, but few comparative studies on the approaches used by managers in the field. This paper describes three software maintenance management strategies currently implemented by six organizations. The strategies are compared on the attributes of performance, economics, efficiency and end-product quality. The paper defines operational measurements for each attribute and describes the data collected over the past two years. The three strategies investigated were labelled the fixed staff/variable schedule, variable staff/fixed schedule and the variable staff/variable schedule. Each strategy has attributes that make it appealing for implementation by a software maintenance project manager. The fixed staff/variable schedule strategy had the fastest priority change response time, the variable staff/fixed schedule strategy had the highest throughput and the best on-schedule performance, and the variable staff/variable schedule had the lowest cost and highest quality. Thus, the key task for a manager is defining the attribute that they would most like to optimize and choosing a strategy that supports that goal. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.