Maintenance contract review components

11.3.1 Maintenance contract review components

When considering the maintenance contract, a broad perspective should be embraced. More than anything else, decisions are required about the cate- gories of services to be contracted. These decisions depend on the type of customers served: customers for whom a custom-made package has been developed, customers who purchased a COTS software package, and inter- nal customers. So, before commencing to supply software maintenance services to any of these customers, an adequate maintenance contract should

be finalized that sets down the total range of maintenance obligations according to the relevant conditions.

Implementation tip

Maintenance services to internal customers are often not contracted. In a typical situation, some of the services provided during the running-in period are continued, with no one bothering to determine the binding obligations for continuation of these services. In such situations, dissatisfaction is expected on both sides: the internal customers feel that they need to ask for favors instead of receiving the regular service that they deserve, whereas the development team eventually experiences requests to perform maintenance tasks as intrusions once they have begun work on another project.

To prevent these tensions, an “internal service contract” should be written. In this document, the services to be provided by the internal maintenance team to the internal customer are clearly defined. By eliminating most of the misunderstanding related to these vital services, such a contract can serve as the basis for satisfactory maintenance to internal customers.

262 The maintenance contract review activities include proposal draft reviews as well as contract draft reviews. Naturally, the objectives and imple-

11 mentation of maintenance contract reviews follow the lines of pre-project As

contract reviews (see Chapter 5). We next list the major objectives of soft-

suring the quality ware maintenance contract reviews.

(1) Customer requirements clarification The following issues deserve special attention: ■ Type of corrective maintenance services required: list of remote services

and on-site services to be provided, hours of service, response time, etc. ■ Size of the user population and the types of applications to be used. ■ Location of users, especially of long-distance (or overseas) sites and

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the types of applications installed in each.

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■ Adaptive and functionality improvement maintenance to be provided

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and procedures for submission of requests for service as well as pro-

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posing and approving performance of these services. (2) Review of alternative approaches to maintenance provision

ainten

The following options deserve special consideration: ■ Subcontracting for sites or type of service ■ Performance of some services by the customer himself with support

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from supplier’s maintenance team.

ec (3) Review of estimates of required maintenance resources omponents

First, these estimates should be examined on the basis of the required maintenance services, clarified by the proposal team. Then, the company’s capacity to meet its commitments with respect to professional competence as well as availability of maintenance teams should be analyzed.

(4) Review of maintenance services to be provided by subcontractors and/or

the customer

This review refers to the definition of the services provided by each par- ticipant, payments to subcontractors, quality assurance and follow-up procedures to be applied.

(5) Review of maintenance costs estimates These estimates should be reviewed on the basis of required resources.