The importance of a maintenance plan

A lot of our clients, especially those who are not technical, primarily think of software development as development of new features. This makes sense as it is something they can touch and feel. So when the engagement is over, the client tends not to have a budget in place for maintenance. This is a serious mistake as it may lead to:

• New bugs (critical or minor)
• Regression bugs (critical or minor)
• Unexpected cost increase due to pricing changes in 3rd party software
• 3rd party software updates breaking the system
• Performance issues affecting customer's user experience
• Minor UI tweaks not getting done in time
• Small feature requests not getting implemented or implemented late

Moreover, the maintenance team can take proactive measures in working on backlog tickets, updating software as needed, building out auto QA, auto deploy, provisioning devops, measuring/improving performance, refactoring/optimizing code, backing up data, ensuring data accuracy, documenting and other intangible tasks.

Maintaining software is like taking care of a bonsai tree. People may not see the visible things (ie the tree growing or blooming) but there are much work behind it (trimming, shaping, watering, fertilizing, etc) to keep the bonsai in its top shape.

How is your bonsai tree?