If you don’t know exactly what software maintenance is, keep in mind that it is a normal process during, or after, a system is developed.
Regardless of the quality of the technology team, it is customary for problems to arise and require attention. Even when the situation is not about a bug, it is common to have to perform maintenance work that allows the software evolve.
In order to delve into the subject and clarify the main points of software maintenance, we will explain its concept, importance and the 3 existing types, in addition to the cost of running a maintenance cycle.
Enjoy!
What is software maintenance?
Software maintenance is the act of making improvements or corrections to a finished or developing system. It is a crucial process to remove errors and improve overall system quality.
It is no use just knowing what software maintenance is and not applying it on a day-to-day basis. For that reason, it is imperative to know its objective and importance so that this common stage in any systems development can, in fact, be properly valued.
The importance of software maintenance
Software maintenance is a mandatory step in any creation or evolution of a system. Without it, any bugs that arise cannot be corrected and, as such, the quality of the product is compromised.
This causes tasks to not run correctly, and consequently, users are affected by a failure, even if small.
Therefore, lack of maintenance can lead to software disablement — obviously a less than ideal and unexpected situation for any type of system.
Thus, it is really important to take care of the software to correct errors, but also to continue the evolution of the system gradually and incrementally. As it happens, this is one of the premises of agile methodologies, which seek to grow the product gradually and based on the needs of users.
See also: Scrum x Kanban: get to understand these two agile methodologies better
When to do software maintenance
To understand the optimal time for software maintenance, it is essential to also get to know what its existing types are. In this sense, each particular software maintenance type will be able to indicate when any sort of intervention is needed in the system.
Let’s get to know the 3 existing types:
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Adaptive maintenance
Adaptive software maintenance entails changes that seek to adapt the software to a new business rule, whether planned in the scope of the project or not. That is, its purpose of adaptive maintenance is to adapt the system to the environment in which it is inserted.
For example, if new labor reform measures have brought about major changes to Human Resources systems, which now have new options for managing workers’ rights.
Adaptive maintenance can also be useful for the areas of finance and accounting, for instance, since their rules also change a lot over time and thus require special attention.
Therefore, adaptive maintenance is performed as new rules that impact the current scope of the system emerge.
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Corrective maintenance
As already briefly mentioned, corrective maintenance aims to troubleshoot defects found in the software—either by programming or project failure. It is important to note that functionality issues are common, although they need to be treated seriously.
Despite the fact that the development team may use the best software development and testing techniques, such as automated testing, for example, unexpected effects can occur that require priority team action.
For that reason, corrective maintenance is likely to be perceived as the most critical type for the company, since its negligence may compromise the use of the product. In practice, such maintenance is applied whenever a problem is encountered.
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Evolutionary maintenance
Lastly, evolutionary maintenance within a system seeks to add new features and improvements to the software design.
It is true that there are systems that do not need maintenance, but these are rare cases and far from the reality of the software world. In this sense, the common process is to improve the system so that it can be increasingly useful to users.
That said, evolutionary maintenance is planned according to the project roadmap, which will tell you the best time to run system improvements, and thus impact tens, hundreds, thousands or even millions of users.
The cost of software maintenance
Now that you understand what software maintenance is, its importance and purpose, when to do it and also its existing types, let’s look at the cost.
This will not be about numbers, but rather how to find out how much the company needs to invest in this particular course of action.
In a nutshell, software maintenance will cost the sum of the hours of the experts involved in the process. Whether it’s adaptive, corrective or evolutionary maintenance, they will all have the same cost, but with different consequences in between.
To clarify: adaptive and corrective maintenance, if not performed, may damage the reputation of the system, as well as lead to abandonment by the user. Thus, despite sharing the cost of evolutionary maintenance, they have more serious consequences.
On the other hand, evolutionary maintenance represents a growth for the project, and the consequences are generally positive. Who doesn’t want better and more useful systems in their day-to-day life? Therefore, evolutionary maintenance helps to increase the reputation of the system and the company.
Now that you’ve learned about the key elements of software maintenance, it’s time to delve into other topics. Please also see:
