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The dimensions of healthy maintenance

What characterizes “healthy” or “satisfactory” software maintenance? How can we know it when we see it? This paper gives initial answers to these questions. We first argue the need for objectively measurable maintenance performance criteria in judging the “adequacy” of maintenance and present a set of criteria for judging maintenance performance in a particular software environment. We then subject the criteria to a practical test by applying them in this environment. We show how applying the criteria enables an informed overall maintenance performance appraisal, locates general maintenance problems, stimulates suggestions for improving maintenance on individual projects, allows these projects' maintenance to be compared and the projects ordered for improvement, and assesses the potential effectiveness of the suggestions in new project maintenance. We also sketch how criteria application can be generalized to software development monitoring and design methodology evaluation.