Implementing a Supportable Maintenance Process for MIS

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Implementing a Supportable Maintenance Process
for MIS

• CFICSE
• 28 Oct 99
• Maj D.L. Wood
• DLESS 2
• 997-9612

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Outline

• Characteristics of Information Systems
• Views of Maintenance
• Current Environment
• Process Improvement

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Wicked Problems - Horst Rittel

• There is no definitive statement of the problem.
  You dont understand the problem until you have
  developed the solution.
• There are many stakeholders. Getting the right
  answer is not as important as having stakeholders
  accept whatever solution emerges.
• The constraints such as limited resources and
  politics, change over time. Stakeholders come
  and go, change their minds, fail to communicate
• Since there is no definitive Problem, there is no
  definitive Solution. The process ends when you
  run out of time, money, energy or some other
  resource, not when some perfect solution emerges.

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Information Systems Characteristics- Swanson
Beath

• They embody and institutionalize organizational
  knowledge
• They tend to grow and elaborate over time
• They tend to be long-lived
• They tend to congregate and develop as families
  whose members are highly dependent on one another
• development of new systems for portfolio is
  never-ending activity
• Maintenance should be viewed within the context
  of the nature of the portfolio taken as a whole
  than within that of the development life cycle of
  any one system

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Maintenance Tasks

• Maintenance Tasks
• Corrective - emergency fixes, routine debugging,
  firefighting
• Adaptive - increases with diversity and
  integration
• Perfective - includes user enhancements 50 of
  effort
• Notion of keeping system up and running is
  stretched to incorporate reqr that it be
  responsive to evolving needs of the users
• Provision of ongoing business support is now
  fundamental

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Short Term View of Maintenance

• Maintenance consists of keeping system up and
  running
• Attributable to the system development cycle
• Role of maintenance in waterfall is reduced to a
  trigger for another round of development activity
  - primary task is development
• bulk of the work is temporary (has beginning and
  end date)
• maintainers and developers are split with
  maintenance the poor cousin with few resources
  assigned
• Maintaining a computer program is one of lifes
  dreariest jobs - Ed Yourdon

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Long Term View of Maintenance

• Recognizes IS department as an on-going service
  organization with permanent responsibility for
  obtaining maximum value from information assets
• primary activity is not product driven - is
  service delivery ie. Providing information
  services to the host organization
• maintenance is an activity undertaken to prevent
  deterioration of the information assets
• emphasizes the permanent link between IS and the
  day-to-day activities

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Balanced View of Maintenance - Swanson Beath

• Combination of short and long term
• responsiveness and sensitivity to the clients
  immediate needs countered with an ability to
  quickly deliver quality products
• high quality application portfolio
• understanding of policies and procedures
• long term vision
• tools and techniques that support ability to
  react
• Maintenance has critical short-term deadlines
  that still must be managed for the good of the
  long term

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How Maintenance Differs from Development

• Development
• development is buffered from users current task
• urgency is relatively predictable and dominated
  by schedules
• reqrs are based on anticipated rather than actual
  use
• user not as motivated in that impacts are not
  immediate
• DELIVERY OF SOFTWARE PRODUCT OF ACCEPTABLE
  QUALITY, ON TIME AND WITHIN BUDGET IS OBJ
• Maintenance
• Characterized by problems of unpredictable
  urgency and significant consequent firefighting
• Reqrs are based on continuous feedback
• User is highly motivated current work is
  directly and immediately impacted
• USER SERVICE IS THE DOMINANT ISSUE

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Application Systems Portfolio
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Constraints
COST
QUALITY
RESOURCES
DURATION
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DLESS
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DND Staff/Contractors
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Operations
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Maintenance
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Development
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Budgetary Constraints

• 1.2 M Army OM
• less 175,000 for COTS licenses
• less 7.5 100,000 750,000 for operations
• less 4 100,000 400,000 for maintenance
• average rates of 400 /day 250 days/year
• Development initiatives tend to be funded by
  slippages in other activities and have short fuse
  time frames
• Im already in the hole and havent done anything
  yet
• MASIS will eventually deliver and replace 50 of
  what I do now. (5 years )

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Making Process Changes

• Need to overcome fear that process will overwhelm
  small team change in culture required
• Need to focus on practices most likely to
• eliminate problems
• control variation in performance
• instill professional discipline
• Success factors
• Mgmt support and commitment (Be present when
  implementing a significant process change)
• Project Planning and Org (WBS, estimation,
  reviews)
• Staff involvement and teamwork (process review
  meetings)
• Education and training (need to educate staff in
  revised procedures)
• Assessment, monitoring and evaluation

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Expected Benefits

• Manage backlog of work (many new demands/needs)
• Develop common practices to help new team members
  quickly become effective
• Maintaining high quality of work while improving
  productivity
• Exchanging knowledge effectively among group
  members

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Instituting Change - Kelly and Culleton

• Small org cannot justify the investment a large
  org can afford
• cultural differences require employees to be
  involved in all aspects - need employee buy-in
• need to use creativity of employees to develop
  innovative solutions to process problems
• need to function under constraints
• cost
• resources
• pressures to deliver

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Software Process Improvement Initiative - Kelly
and Culleton
Evaluation
Process Definition
Pilot Project
Training
Post Rollout
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Where to Start? - IEEE 12207

• Acquisition
• Supply
• Operation
• Maintenance
• Development
• Management
• Infrastructure
• Improvement
• Training

• Documentation
• Configuration Management
• Quality Assurance
• Verification
• Validation
• Joint Review
• Audit
• Problem Resolution

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Action Items

• Acquisition (short term)
• develop procedures diagram
• publish templates for SOWs
• establish Long Term Contract
• Operation (med term)
• generate Operation Plan (problem resolution,
  testing, training)
• issue problem resolution model
• reaffirm requirement to log support calls
• monitor application of process
• Maintenance (med term)
• Maintenance Plan

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Action Items

• Documentation (short term)
• issue Documentation Plan - identify required
  documents
• establish Documentation Standards for each
  document
• Configuration Management (short term)
• re-issue Configuration Management Plan
• Identify Configuration Items (subject to CM)
• Implement Control Procedures
• publish procedures diagram,
• enforce SCR form and SCR log,
• establish CCB TOR
• conduct Status Accounting
• maintain SCR log
• utilize Version Description Document
• Manage releases
• log baseline CIs in LSEC library
• schedule releases

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Action Items

• Monitor and Review
• base payment on compliance
• performance review
• rewards and recognition
• Communicate to Clients
• increased confidence
• appreciation for changes which will take place

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References

• Less is More, Steve McConnell,
  http//construx.com/stevemcc/articles/art06.htm
• Wicked Problems, Righteous Solutions A Catalog
  of Modern Software Engineering Paradigms Degrace,
  Peter. (referenced)
• Software Engineering Economics. Boehm, Barry.
  (referenced)
• Maintaining Information Systems in Organizations.
  Swanson and Beath.
• Process Improvement for Small Organizations.
  Declan P. Kelly and Bill Culleton

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• Questions