Evaluation of handover activities from the perspective of the system acquisition and front-end support

Even if software handover is a critical process in the lifecycle of a software system, there is still very little research done within its domain. In this paper, we evaluate the taxonomy of handover activities as defined in EM³: Handover Process Model. We do it in an industrial setting in a context where a software system is handed over from a vendor conducting system development, evolution and maintenance to an acquirer using the system and conducting front-end support. Our results show that the taxonomy is realistic in the context studied. However, it misses some important deployment and training activities.