4 Five guidelines are suggested in Section 11.4.1 for testing small repairs of soft- omponents ware performed by a software maintenance team member.

ec 11.4 Five guidelines are suggested in Section 11.4.1 for testing small repairs of soft- omponents ware performed by a software maintenance team member.

(1) Explain the importance of each of the guidelines for achieving adequate quality of software repairs. (2) Explain how the guidelines cope with the special characteristics of small repairs (“patches”).

11.5 The six issues to be stipulated in a contract for subcontracting software mainte- nance services are mentioned in Section 11.4.1.

(1) Explain the importance of each issue in your own words. (2) Suggest how the subcontractor could benefit from full implementation of the

control clauses included in the contractor’s contract with the customer. 11.6 It is claimed that higher standards are needed for training and certification of

maintenance team members than for development team members. (1) Do you agree or disagree with this statement? List your arguments.

(2) If you agree with the above, what component of software maintenance (cor- rective, adaptive or functionality improvement) do you consider most suitable for the above statement?

11.7 Most software corrective maintenance procedures require extensive documenta- tion of the activities performed.

(1) List the main uses for the various types of corrective maintenance documentation. (2) Explain the importance of the required documentation in your own words.

11.8 Refer to Section 11.4.4 on managerial control of software maintenance services.

(1) List the main issues dealt with by managerial maintenance control. (2) Once management receives proper reporting from the maintenance teams, is

Topic

there a need for meetings and visits? What additional contributions to mana-

for di Topics for discussion

gerial control might be achieved by meetings and visits? List your arguments.

sc u ss

ion

11.1 A lecturer in a SQA conference concluded his talk by recommending that a soft-

ware maintenance specialist participate in the quality assurance activities carried out during the development process.

(1) Do you agree with the lecturer? (2) List your arguments for and against this suggestion. (3) Do you support “reverse” cooperation, where a development specialist par-

ticipates in quality assurance activities of the maintenance team? List your arguments for and against this position.

11.2 Mr Steve Barber, a software maintenance expert, was recruited to serve as leader of the team providing maintenance services for Hotelex, a hotel management soft- ware package, after the former team leader resigned. The package had been on the market for six months and the team has already installed and maintained four different versions of Hotelex in seven hotels. The company is in the first stages of developing packages for sports clubs and community centers. The software main- tenance team is expected to serve the customers of all three packages. During the team’s monthly meeting, Mr Barber mentioned that after a month in service, he found that the foundations for maintaining Hotelex are inadequate, causing the high software maintenance costs. While nothing could be done in relation to the software package’s quality (the first maintenance foundation) at this point, he hoped to improve maintenance policy (the second foundation) within the next three months. In general, he declared that he would act to assure proper founda- tions for the two new software packages being currently developed.

(1) Suggest what findings regarding the maintenance of Hotelex had brought

Mr Barber to his negative evaluation of its maintenance according to its two foundations.

(2) Suggest what could still be altered, and how to do so. (3) Suggest what actions Mr Barber might plan to assure proper foundations for

the two new packages. 11.3 The weekly customers’ complaints that were piled on the desk of the head of the

Operations Department included the following: ■

A complaint repeated by several customers: the software maintenance tech- nician, who was unable to solve the problem on site at the scheduled time, claimed that he was unaware that he was required to carry the software pro- grammers’ manual with him at all times; therefore, he could not solve the

■ A complaint by the Operations Manager of a supermarket chain: the software maintenance team had unsuccessfully tried to correct the software three times;

11 as a result, several crucial functions could not be activated for four days. As ■

A customer’s angry letter complaining about an unfair cost estimate for a

suring the quality requested minor improvement: 60 man-days. He quoted the head of the

Software Functional Improvement Team, who had said that the high estimate was the outcome of missing documentation and non-standard coding of the original package.

Analyze each of the cases and then: (1) Suggest the reasons for each of the maintenance team’s failures.

(2) Suggest the steps to be taken in each case to prevent the failures mentioned

of

in (1).

sof

11.4 At a recent SQA conference, a speaker mentioned the following costs as mainte-

tw

nance quality costs:

are m

■ High operating costs due to unanticipated high frequency of overseas service calls. It has been found that the overseas branches of a firm employ six times

ainten

more employees than were estimated by software suppliers’ sales depart- ments at the time the proposals were prepared.

anc Damages to the Software Development Department due to increasing diffi-

culties in sales and higher rates of tender losses after two leading customers

ec had decided not to renew their maintenance contracts, claiming inadequate omponents

quality of maintenance services. ■

Increased penalties paid to customers during a two-month period in which the maintenance team was short of three team members.

(1) Can all the costs in the three cases mentioned above be considered mainte- nance quality costs? Analyze each case separately. List your arguments. (2) How would you classify each of quality costs described in the above cases according to the classic and extended models (see Sections 22.2 and 22.3)? List your arguments.

ch a p t e r 1 2

Assuring the quality of external participants’ contributions

Chapter outline

12.1 Introduction: the HealthSoft case 280

12.2 Types of external participants 282

12.3 Risks and benefits of introducing external participants 283

12.4 Assuring the quality of external participants’ contributions: objectives

12.5 SQA tools for assuring the quality of external participants’ contributions

12.5.1 Requirements document reviews 287

12.5.2 Choice of external participants 288

12.5.3 The project coordination and joint control committee 290

12.5.4 Participation in design reviews 291

12.5.5 Participation in software testing 291

12.5.6 Specialized procedures 291

12.5.7 Certification of external participants’ team leaders and other staff

12.5.8 Progress reports 292

12.5.9 Review of deliverables (documents) and acceptance tests

293 Summary

293 Selected bibliography

295 Review questions

295 Topics for discussion

Evidence for the importance of assuring the quality of external participants’ contributions is found in the ISO 9000-3 Standard (see ISO, 1997, Sec. 4.6 and ISO/IEC, 2001, Sec. 7.4), IEEE Std 1062 (IEEE, 1998) and the software quality assurance literature (see Basili and Boehm, 2001; Oskarsson and Glass, 1996).

280 After completing this chapter, you will be able to:

12 ■ Explain the difference between contractors and external participants. As ■ List the types of external participants, and explain the benefits they pro- suring the quality vide to the contractor.

Describe the risks for the contractor associated with turning to external participants.

List the SQA tools appropriate for use with external participants and add short statements regarding the risks they help to eliminate or reduce.