Gauging the Differences between Expectation and Systems Support: The Managerial Approach of Adaptive and Perfective Software Maintenance

Differences in the type and nature of tasks in software development and maintenance require a careful selection of separate methods and procedures to handle each task. A great deal of academic and practical attention has been devoted to studying methods of developing software; considerably less attention has been devoted to studying the management of software once implemented. Also, current research has been focused on the technical side of the software maintenance (e.g., development of models and tools) and completely ignores the managerial side. This research gap initiates the knowledge niche for researchers and practitioners to further investigate the management issues in the software maintenance process. In this paper, we assimilate previous research in the software maintenance management area and address three major management challenges associated with the software maintenance.