Outsourcing Software Maintenance: Processes, Standards & Critical Practices

This paper presents a reference model for software maintenance processes with tailoring possibilities to suit varying team sizes and to help scope out the level of the desired outsourcing process. The reference maintenance process defines the required activities, artifacts, roles and their relationships. This approach helped highlights critical practices and their associated risks. Software standards are scrutinized in the view of identifying the ones that can benefit software maintenance from an outsourcing standpoint. An example illustrates the customization of the reference maintenance process based on standards. This paper proposes a reference maintenance process (RPM) that can be upgraded or downgraded according to maintenance needs. The process is also aligned with the various standards related to the development practices, the software life cycles and the product quality. The goal of the RPM is to facilitate the mitigation of risks during maintenance activities.