Software Maintenance and Change Control at McBride Financial Essay Example

to make sure that the software package be scalable. In addition, if the package is scalable, exactly how much scalability can be accomplished? For example, can an in house developer that works for McBride Financial create new programs that can enhance the functionality of the off the shelf program or will an external contractor be needed..External Contractors A second type of software development is to have external contractors develop the software.

If off the shelf software does not meet the organization’s requirements and in house expertise is not available, then having external software developers create the software package may be the best route. If McBride Financial chooses to hire external developers, they need to make sure that a very well defined requirements list is put together. They will also need to interview different software development firms to gauge their levels of experience.Furthermore, a prospective development firm will need to provide examples and verifiable references. Finally, the statement of work defined by the development firm, needs to be considered by McBride Financial to ensure all requirements are met.

In House The third type of software development is to use in house developers. If McBride Financial currently employs any software developers or has individuals who are subject matter experts, this may be the best route to take. Using in house developers can reduce upfront costs for software development but can increase long-term costs if the software development project is not managed well.This type of development can provide to McBride Financial a software package that is unique and tailored to their organization. Software Maintenance Risks Regardless of the type of software development McBride Financial chooses, good solid software maintenance and

change control plans will be the key to successful software development projects.

Some key issues that can affect a software maintenance plan can be identified as managerial, financial, and technical. Managerial Risk The first issue, or risk, is management.Management risks such as lack of planning or organizational problems can affect a software maintenance plan. Other management risks include lack of management experience, communications problems, and lack of authority. An important issue is for McBride Financial to elect a good project manager with relevant experience.

McBride should also keep channels of communication open and make sure that the project manager be authorized to make certain decisions. Lastly, a good project manager will spend a good amount of time planning and analyzing the software maintenance project.Financial Risk The second risk that can affect a software maintenance plan is financial. Financial risks such as cash flow and budget issues will slow down, or even stop, a software maintenance plan.

McBride Financial will need a true cost estimate for the software maintenance plan to make sure that the capital is available. A good project manager can provide a true project budget and provide for contingency. An important note is that even though the software maintenance plan may have the correct capital allotted to it; issues with organizational cash flow can slow or stop this plan.Therefore, the recommendation for McBride Financial is to look at its financial situation to make sure the cash flow will be there for the completion of this project.

Technical Risk The third risk, technical risk, can affect a software maintenance plan because of problems with the programming language, lack of developer experience, or depending on resources outside the control

of the project team. Depending on the type of software project that McBride Financial is going to champion, programming languages need to be studied to make sure that a relevant language is chosen.A poorly chosen language can result in scalability setbacks and program functionality. Whether McBride Financial chooses to go in house, off the shelf, or use external developers, they need to make sure the developers have relevant experience with the type of program being produced. Furthermore, if external resources are to be used, McBride Financial can control those resources.

If they do not have full control, they need to see what type of control they do have. By not having full control, McBride Financial risks having a dependency on them and could slow the software maintenance project.Software Maintenance McBride organization developed its own software for the operation of the company’s business. The company when through many phases of building the software system before the system is put into production. For example, the organization had to establish the engineering, design implementation, testing software deployment and maintenance before the software is ready to be used, therefore, the maintenance of the software is the last stage of the software life cycle (Stafford, 2003). The many stages of the software development are usually completed before getting to the maintenance process; however, the maintenance of the software is dependent on the efficiency of the prior stages of development in order to maintain the software easily.

Four major problems will slow down the organization’s ability to maintain its software efficiently, such as, the unstructured codes, a programmer with insufficient knowledge of the system being implemented, lack of documentation, documentation that is not

kept updated and or insufficient documentation.Consequently, the success of maintaining the software life cycle will depend on McBride Financial Services ability and initiate to fix these issues earlier in the cycle of the software before the software reaches the maintenance stage (Stafford, 2003). During the maintenance process, McBride will have to address such issues as “corrective maintenance” which deals with fixing bugs that may exist in the development of the software codes. Other issues will arise such as updating the software according to changes that may occur from the end-users requirement.The most important issue for McBride must be updating the documents for any changes to the software and sustaining the accessibility of such documents.

Proper documentation of maintenance to the software will contribute to the organization’s reduced labor cost (Stafford, 2003). As the company’s software systems ages, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep them up and running without maintenance. Keeping the software maintenance updated can become an advantage, or disadvantage to McBride. An example of an advantage will be in increased productivity and the quality of the software that was developed.The software will be improved and possibly decrease the levels of errors and down time as flaws in the software system are detected early. Remedies for any issues can be resolved before they become noticeable and possible corrupt the entire software system.

Such enhancement will increase the company’s revenue and keep the company’s shareholders satisfied with the organizations progress. On the other hand McBride not keeping proper maintenance can cause problems to the company’s software system. Lack of maintenance would run the risk of lost in roductivity due to a unreliable software system and resulting in an

increase labor cost. Many problems that could have been avoided if McBride took the initiative to set- up a regular maintenance plan and maintenance templates for such occasions as software testing and revision to the software system. McBride must assume responsible for the maintenance and identify in writing the full responsibilities of each its functional areas involved in the maintenance of the software system. The maintainer of the software system in addition to the supporting procedures should establish the maintenance plan and the final documentation.

McBride’s upper level management and the organizations SQA should approve these documents. Any other functional department involved with the changes of the development and deployment of the software system should be informed as well. An example of a maintenance template is described below and would be implemented as a part of the organization’s best business practices for software maintenance documentation (Stafford, 2003). The Maintenance Plan would involve the maintainer creating maintenance templates such as a: Revision Software History Chart Version Author(s) Description of Version Date completed Dated prepared Date Approved. The templates should spell out all the issues that are prevailing regarding the need for the software maintenance prior to any type of modification to guarantee that all applicable organizational functions are addressed (Walsh, 2004) Change Control Change control may be one of the most important processes in the software development process. “Change control aims to ensure that all changes are assessed and approved by management before their implementation. Its goals are minimal disruption to services, reduction in back-out activities and economic utilization of resources involved in implementing change” (Wikipedia, 2008).

Change control is the formal process to allow the customer and

developer to communicate what is needed to modify or correct problems in an application. This process will convey the specific needs and both the customer and the developers have documentation to show what deliverables will come from the change request. The change process is documenting the request, analyzing technical and business impacts and risks, gaining approval from stakeholders, scheduling and managing the change workflow, and reviewing the change tasks.The change management process in and of itself must also be tuned for operational efficiency assessing the types of changes that are being requested across the organization, the speed with which changes are made, or the number of changes that must be reversed.

The software change request require expenditures and may generate revenues over a span of time. A software change can be considered the result of an investment decision in which expenses are dispersed in the belief that greater benefits will be obtained in the future by changing or improving the software.Similarly, the choice of the specific techniques employed on software developers is the results of investment decisions that should reflect an attempt to optimize certain financial criteria. Probably the most important aspect of any change control process is the development of documentation that will identify what is being changed and how the changes are accomplished. Detailed documentation will ensure the software is supportable. The documentation will allow other developer to step in quickly if the need arises.

Conclusion A successful maintenance and change control program is a critical part of any software development program.Software cost can be reduced, providing consistence and repeatability for future projects, when using an optimized and sustainable maintenance plan. One goal is to

make efficient use of the company’s resources. Change control, testing and implementation are an integral part to obtain this goal. McBride Financial needs to take advantage of the latest technology in the application to be competitive as a mortgage company.

To make this goal a reality McBride Financial will look at different types of software development and identify the impacts of the software, the maintenance and sustainability of the software.Part of this will be to require proper change control procedure are in place to ensure a long lifespan for the software adding value to the product.

Reference

1. Koskinen, J. (2003). Software Maintenance Cost. Retrieved August 16, 2008, from http://www.csjyu. fi/~koskinen/smcosts. htm Klariti (2007).
2. Maintenance Plan Template. Retrieved August 16, 2008, from http://www. klariti.com/templates/Maintenance-Plan-Template. shtml Wikipedia. (2008).
3. Change Control. Retrieved on August 20, 2008 from http://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Change_control