Abstract
Developing and maintaining software systems is a knowledge intensive task. One needs knowledge of the application domain of the software, the problem the system solves, the requirements for this problem, the architecture of the system and how the different parts fit together, how the system interacts with its environment, etc. More often than not, this knowledge is not documented and lives only in the head of the software engineers. It is, therefore, volatile and an organization may repeatedly pay professionals to rediscover a knowledge it previously acquired and lost. In recognition of this fact, knowledge management techniques such as Postmortem Analysis are being used to help salvage this knowledge. Traditionally, Postmortem Analysis has been applied at the end of software development projects with a focus on organizational aspects such as how to improve the execution of a process. In this paper, we present the application of Postmortem Analysis in a new context: for software maintenance projects. We also apply it, not only for process improvement, but to discover knowledge on the software maintained itself.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
ISO/IEC 12207. Information technology — Software life cycle processes. ISO/IEC (1995)
Basili, V.R., Caldiera, G., Dieter Rombach, H.: The Experience Factory. In: Encyclopedia of Software Engineering, vol. 1, pp. 469–476. John Wiley & Sons, Chichester (1994)
Birk, A., Dingsøyr, T., Stålhane, T.: Postmortem: Never leave a project without it. IEEE Software 19(3), 43–45 (2002)
Collier, B., DeMarco, T., Fearey, P.: A defined process for postmortem review. IEEE Software 13(4), 65–72 (1996)
Deridder, D.: Facilitating software maintenance and reuse activities with a concept-oriented approach. Technical report, Programming Technology Lab - Vrije Universiteit Brussel (may 2002)
Dias, M.G.B., Anquetil, N., de Oliveira, K.M.: Organizing the knowledge used in software maintenance. In: Reimer, U., Abecker, A., Staab, S., Stumme, G. (eds.) WM2003: Professionnelles Wissensmanagement – Erfahrungen und Visionen, Gesellschaft für Informatik, Bonn, April 3, 2003. Lecture Notes in Informatics, pp. 65–72 (2003) (presented at the Learning Software Organizations Workshop) ISBN 3-88579-357-1
Dias, M.G.B., Anquetil, N., de Oliveira, K.M.: Organizing the knowledge used in software maintenance. Journal of Universal Computer Science 9(7), 641–658 (2003)
Dingsøyr, T., Moe, N.B., Øystein, N.: Augmenting experience reports with lightweight postmortem reviews. In: Bomarius, F., Komi-Sirviö, S. (eds.) PROFES 2001. LNCS, vol. 2188, pp. 167–181. Springer, Heidelberg (2001)
Humphrey, W.S.: Introduction to the Team Software Process. SEI Series in Software Engineering. Addison-Wesley Longman, Inc., Amsterdam (1999)
Jørgensen, M., Sjøberg, D.I.K.: Impact of experience on maintnenance skills. Journal of Software Maintenance: Research and Practice 14(2), 123–146 (2002)
Kerth, N.L.: An approach to postmorta, postparta & post project review, On Lione http://c2.com/doc/ppm.pdf.Lastaccessedon:06/01/2003
Lehman, M.M.: Programs, life cycles and the laws of software evolution. Proceedings of the IEEE 68(9), 1060–1076 (1980)
Pfleeger, S.L.: What software engineering can learn from soccer. IEEE Software 19(6), 64–65 (2002)
Pigoski, T.M.: Practical Software Maintenance. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Chichester (1996)
Rising, L.: Patterns in postmortems. In: Proceedings of the Twenty-Third Annual International Computer Software and Applications Conference, October 25–26, 1999, pp. 314–315. IEEE, IEEE Comp. Soc. Press (1999)
Stålhane, T., Dingsøyr, T., Hanssen, G.K., Moe, N.B.: Post mortem – an assessement of two approaches. In: Proceedings of the European Software Process Improvement 2001 (EuroSPI 2001) (October 10-12, 2001)
Yourdon, E.: Minipostmortems. COMPUTERWORLD (March 19, 2001)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2004 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
de Sousa, K.D., Anquetil, N., de Oliveira, K.M. (2004). Learning Software Maintenance Organizations. In: Melnik, G., Holz, H. (eds) Advances in Learning Software Organizations. LSO 2004. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 3096. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-25983-1_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-25983-1_7
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-22192-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-25983-1
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive