A thought ... Only bad solutions require maintenance?!?
In the recent months, while running a developer readiness program for a very energetic team focused primarily on native C++ development and only just scratching the surface of .NET, I have often overheard conversations that maintenance teams are boring, maintenance teams are the end of the road and only bad solutions require maintenance.
Absolute rubbish … “excuse the outburst”.
While bad solutions are actually made obsolete or retired very quickly, solutions that are well designed, well developed and “add value to the business” are those that are maintained for many, many processor cycles.
A solution I was originally part of as a systems analyst, was recently retired after more than 20 years in service … surely the stakeholders got the maximum value out of the solution and if CTOS had not been retired, it would probably run for a few more moons.
It is also important to note that maintenance is normally far more cost effective than construction.
In fact, when a system has clocked as many maintenance hours as original construction hours, the solution enters the league of good value-add solutions.
We as analysts need to continuously ensure that solutions meet the need of the business, performing corrective, perfective, adaptive and at times emergency maintenance. None of these maintenance tasks are either boring or bad, in fact they are often the most rewarding to all stakeholders of a solution.
So next time, before you point your keyboard or mouse at the maintenance teams, remember that they are servicing the gems of the solution factories and are “the team”!