Case Study about Software Maintenance
Abstract: In an effort to find out more about the tools, procedures, and techniques project personnel use in their work, the Computer-Aided Software Engineering (CASE) Environments Project interviewed personnel in eight software maintenance projects within an agency of the U.S. government. These interviews highlighted problems that we believe are typical of many software maintenance organizations. This report highlights the findings of these interviews, provides our analysis of the findings, and makes recommendations directed at the agency for improvement in the areas of tools, people, and process. We believe that what we observed is very typical of the state of the practice in these areas and as such that this report and its recommendations are applicable to other large or small software maintenance projects.
Introduction: The Software Engineering Institute (SEI) performed a study, within a government agency, which investigated the application of computer-aided software engineering (CASE) technologies to software development. As part of this study, one task was to examine the development processes and the software tools used within maintenance (life-cycle support) projects. The examination was performed through interviews with appropriate project managers and technical personnel associated with eight projects within this agency. This report highlights the results of these interviews. It presents our findings, recommendations, analysis of findings, suggestions for improvement, and a bibliography for further reading. The projects selected for study were chosen by agency personnel based on volunteers responding to a call for participation.
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