A documentation paradigm for an integrated software maintenance support environment

Recent advances in computer hardware have not been matched by comparable advances in computer software, inhibiting the production of reliable software at greater levels of productivity. Development of software is restricted by the so-called "maintenance backlog". Productivity in the maintenance sector has not kept pace with increasing annual labour costs, making the maintenance of software the major item in the budget, of organisations responsible for the development and maintenance of software. Gains in productivity can be anticipated by the exploitation of software-maintenance tools, within the framework of an Integrated .Software Maintenance Support Environment (ISMSE). for which a high-level design has been proposed in this thesis, offering comprehensive support for all phases of the software life-cycle, particularly the maintenance phase. A key factor in the reliable modification of software is the time taken to gain the prerequisite understanding, by a study of the system's documentation. This documentation degrades over a period of time, becoming unreliable, inhibiting maintenance of the software, which may be a large capital asset, ultimately, the software may become impossible to maintain, requiring replacement. Understanding gained during maintenance is wide-ranging and at various levels of abstraction, but is often NOT well-recorded, since no effective documentation system exists for recording the maintenance history of large software systems. The documentation paradigm in this thesis, used within the framework of an ISMSE, aims to provide a means of recording the knowledge gained during maintenance, facilitating easier future maintenance, and preserving the reliability of the documentation, so reducing the time required to gain an understanding of the software being maintained. This provides a powerful means of increasing productivity, while simultaneously preserving a valuable capital asset

Project Size and Software Maintenance Productivity: Empirical Evidence on Economies of Scale in Software Maintenance

Although appropriate sizing of software projects is a concern in software development, Information Systems managers generally do not consider maintenance project size as a potentid influence on software maintenance productivity. This view ignores potential efficiency gains which may arise from proactive renovationstrategiessuchasbatchingsimilarmaintenancerequestsintolargerprojects. Inthisstudy,we explore the relationship between project size and productivity for software rmintenance projects at a major national mass merchandising retailer. Using a non-parametric methodology called Da& Envelopment Analysis (DEA) for estimating the functional relationship between maintenance inputs and outputs, we determine the most productive scale size for a set of maintenance projects at this organization. In addition, we also employ DEA-based heuristics to test for the existence of returns to scale for the projects. Our results indicate the presence of significant scale economies in these software maintenance projects. The most productive scale size is larger than 90% of the projects included in our sample. These results imply that there may be potential to increase productivity in software maintenance at this organization by grouping smaller modification projects into larger planned releases

An Empirical Analysis of Software Productivity

The aim of our research is to discover what factors impact software project productivity (measured as function points per hour) using real world data. Within this overall goal we also compare productivity between different business sectors and project types. We analysed a data set of almost 700 projects that have been collected by STTF from a number of Finnish companies since 1978. These projects are quite diverse type (new and maintenance projects), in terms of size (6 to over 5000 function points), effort (55 to over 60000 person hours), application domain and implementation technology. There are three main findings. First productivity varies enormously between projects. Second, project type has limited influence on productivity. Third, application domain or business area has a major impact upon productivity. Because this data set is not a random sample generalisation is somewhat problematic, we hope that it contributes to an overall body of knowledge about software productivity and thereby facilitates the construction of a bigger picture

Analysis of the influence to productivity of software corrective maintenance using an economic model

© 2014 IEEE. This paper presents an economic model for productivity of software corrective maintenance. The productivity is modeled using economic value of the maintenance process as the output, and the pre-committed fixed cost and variable cost as input. The relationship of the economic value and these cost components are modeled using analytical theory of investment. The values of corrective maintenance process are analyzed. A simulation approach is demonstrated to analyze the influences to the productivity in corrective maintenance. This approach provides a tool to identify and analyze the optimal parameters in productivity using the economic model and simulation

In Search of Software Maintenance Productivity and Quality: Does Software Complexity Matter?

Over the past several decades, sof.twaremaintenance has heen absorbing a large and rising proportion of Information Systcmns (IS) resources wilh expenditures ofteu as high as 80% to 95% of the total IS budget (Nosek and Palvia 1990). On a life-cycle basis, about three-fourths of the investment in software occurs after the system bas been implemented. Thus, support for existing software represents il significant investment of resources for most f m s and there is considerable interest in understaiding and improving productivity and quality in the software maintenance w k

FACTORS AFFECTING SOFTWARE MAINTENANCE PRODUCTIVITY: AN EXPLORATORY STUDYl

Systems developers and researchers have long been interested in the factors that affect software development productivity. Identification of factors as either aiding or hindering productivity enables management to take steps to encourage the positive influences and to eliminate the negative ones. This research has explored the possibility of developing an estimable model of software development productivity using a frontier estimation method. The approach taken is based upon output metrics for the entire project life-cycle, and includes project quality metrics. A large number of factors potentially affecting software maintenance productivity were included in this initial investigation. The empirical analysis of a pilot data set indicated that high project quality did not necessarily reduce project productivity. Significant factors in explaining positive variations in productivity included project team capability and good system response (turnaround) time. Factors significantly associated with negative variations in productivity included lack of team application experience and high project staff loading, The use of a new structured analysis and design methodology also resulted in lower short term productivity. These preliminary results have suggested a number of new research directions and have prompted the data-site to begin a full scale data collection effort in order to validate a model of software maintenance productivity

A process model of maintenance with reuse: an investigation and an implementation abstract

Sixty to eighty per cent of the software life-cycle cost is spent on the software maintenance phase because software maintenance is usually more difficult than original development and legacy systems are generally large and complex. Software reuse has recently been considered as a best solution to enhance the productivity of a software development team and to reduce maintenance costs. In addition, Software Configuration Management (SCM) is a central part of software maintenance as it is associated with changing existing software and is a discipline for controlling these changes. Thus, both software reuse and SCM have been proposed for making a significant improvement in productivity, quality and cost. However, so far these two technologies have been investigated separately. In order for software reuse and SCM to produce effects by synergy, both approaches require to be introduced into a maintenance environment together. Since software reuse and SCM, and software reuse and software maintenance have many similarities in their activities, these disciplines can be integrated within a software maintenance environment. This research has therefore developed an integrated process model for 'Maintenance with Reuse (MwR)', that supports SCM for a reuse library which is actively maintained for use in a software maintenance environment. This thesis addresses an integrated process model called the MwR model and its prototype tool TERRA (Tool for Evolution of a Reusable and Reconfigurable Assets Library) that consist of a configuration management (CM) process, reuse process, maintenance process and administration of a reuse library. The MwR model and TERRA provide reusers and maintainers with many activities of these four processes such as classifying, storing, retrieving, evaluating, and propagating reusable components, including controlling changes to both reusable components and existing systems. The process model of an integrated approach has been developed and validated using Process Weaver. The TERRA tool has been implemented on the WWW so that the prototype can provide portability, traceability, integration with existing tools, and a distributed maintenance environment. The TERRA prototype has been tested and evaluated through a scenario based case study. Several scenarios based on real data have been created and used for the case study so that an organisation can apply the model and tool to its maintenance environment without many problems. The software maintenance community is facing serious problems with legacy systems, such as a ever increasing frequency of changes and backlogs, lack of integrated tools and methods, and lack of software maintenance support environments. The control and management of changes to the software components in a reuse repository are crucial to successful software development and maintenance. If the component is being used in multiple systems effects of uncontrolled change are more critical. However, reuse libraries and servers currently available have not been successful as they do not support further development or maintenance of the reusable components. In addition, most of them are not sophisticated since they have not been linked to a development/maintenance environment. The integrated model of MwR can overcome many problems that exist in software maintenance and reuse through introduction of SCM functionalities into a maintenance environment. Thus, the integration of these common activities will greatly contribute to enhancing the productivity and quality of software, and will additionally lead to reducing the costs and backlogs of changes within a maintenance environment

Relevance, benefits, and problems of software modelling and model driven techniques—A survey in the Italian industry

Context Claimed benefits of software modelling and model driven techniques are improvements in productivity, portability, maintainability and interoperability. However, little effort has been devoted at collecting evidence to evaluate their actual relevance, benefits and usage complications. Goal The main goals of this paper are: (1) assess the diffusion and relevance of software modelling and MD techniques in the Italian industry, (2) understand the expected and achieved benefits, and (3) identify which problems limit/prevent their diffusion. Method We conducted an exploratory personal opinion survey with a sample of 155 Italian software professionals by means of a Web-based questionnaire on-line from February to April 2011. Results Software modelling and MD techniques are very relevant in the Italian industry. The adoption of simple modelling brings common benefits (better design support, documentation improvement, better maintenance, and higher software quality), while MD techniques make it easier to achieve: improved standardization, higher productivity, and platform independence. We identified problems, some hindering adoption (too much effort required and limited usefulness) others preventing it (lack of competencies and supporting tools). Conclusions The relevance represents an important objective motivation for researchers in this area. The relationship between techniques and attainable benefits represents an instrument for practitioners planning the adoption of such techniques. In addition the findings may provide hints for companies and universitie

Application Portfolio Diversity and Software Maintenance Productivity:An Empirical Analysis

The research addresses the issue of productivity in application software maintenance. Specifically, it examines the effect of diversity in tools, techniques, hardware and software associated with the portfolio being maintained. In manufacturing environments, there is some evidence to suggest that production of products where there is little sharing of inputs and production processes reduces focus and results in lower manufacturing performance (Skinner, 1974). In economics, it is argued that there are cost complementarities or economies of scope in sharing common inputs and processes among various products with commonalities in production, and diseconomies of scope when inputs and processes differ (Panzar and Willig, 1977, 1981). In the software maintenance context, the issue of diversity and its effect on productivity is particularly salient. Software maintenance is work done to enhance software functionality, correct errors and improve the performance of software (Schneidewind, 1987). It is a costly activity for organizations, requiring from 50 to 80% of the Information Systems (IS) budget and representing more than threefourths of software costs on a life cycle basis (Arthur, 1988). Application portfolio diversity, i.e.,differences in technical platforms, software languages, and development tools and techniques in the set of the organization\u27s software systems, arises as a consequence of the organization\u27s information technology infrastructure decisions. To meet a particular customer need, an IS group acquires or develops software using a certain tool, methodology, and hardware platform. However, it may be that the software does not fit well into the organization\u27s existing technical platform. Furthermore, the software may have been developed using a different methodology or tools than other software systems in the organization\u27s portfolio. This diversity may have the result of increased difficulty in software maintenance because software enhancement can require modification of multiple software systems that have been created using a variety of languages, tools and techniques. The results of our analysis suggest that software portfolio diversity reduces productivity in software maintenance. Potential inefficiencies from diversity in software maintenance can arise from several causes. Switching costs are incurred due to multiple, varied process flows and frequent change over in processes required when modifying software created using different methodologies and tools. Diversity may also increase the difficulty of software quality control, testing and verification; for example, inefficiencies may occur due to the complexities of conducting system and integration testing across multiple technical platforms. Finally, there may be costs due to the difficulties in selecting project team members with the multiple and varied skills required to modify diverse sets of software

An investigation of the effect of a reverse engineering tool on the software maintenance effort

In order to determine the effectiveness and efficiency of software engineering aids in software program maintenance, productivity improvements as measured by the time to task completion -- for a representative sample of Software Engineers were assessed, with and without the use of a commercially available CASE tool. These improvements were also measured in relation to the level of experience of the Software Engineer and the complexity level of the program maintained. Results show that the CASE tool appeared to have a significant impact on the productivity of the Software Engineers included in the study. The effect of the tool in terms of productivity, was positive for both experienced and inexperienced Software Engineers. This positive effect was apparent regardless of the complexity of the program