Analyzing Trends for Maintenance Request Process Assessment: Empirical Investigation in a Very Small Software Company

Abstract

Assessment and improvement of software maintenance processes in small software companies is very important
because of large costs of maintenance and constraints of small software companies. This study presents an approach
to assessment of software maintenance requests’ processing in a very small local software company. The approach is
context dependent and uses trend analysis and feedback sessions for assessing the current state of maintenance request
processing. The analysis is based on various sources of data such as: internal repository of maintenance requests,
company documents, transcribed records of interviews with company employees, and transcribed records of feedback
sessions. Monthly trends for maintenance requests, working hours and types of maintenance tasks, by considering
clients and software products are presented in the article. Identified trends were discussed during feedback sessions
in the company. Participants in feedback sessions were company employees and researchers. During discussions
of trends, some directions for further improvement of maintenance requests’ processing were proposed. The article
concludes with implications for practitioners from industry and researchers, as well as further research directions.