Effort Data - M&S - Applications

You can record metrics data either : -

into SCOPE as described below
into the EXCEL Metrics Template for import into SCOPE.

Without effort data, you will not be able to perform any significant benchmarking analysis. If only the total hours is known, then enter just the Total Hours. If the hours of effort are known for each of the Maintenance and Support Activities then please enter the details. Click derived for SCOPE to sum the values into the Total field.

If however the breakdown is known then please also enter this in the separate fields. Please enter as much detail as possible.

Maintenance Effort

Maintenance Effort is time spent on activities and tasks required to keep a system operational after its implementation into Production. Maintenance tasks are categorized as follows:

Perfective maintenance - The modification of a software application after delivery to improve performance or maintainability. Note: perfective maintenance provides enhancements (improvements) for users, improvement of program documentation, and re-coding to improve software performance, maintainability, or other software attributes.
Preventative maintenance - The modification of a software application after delivery to detect and correct latent faults in the software product before they become effective faults. This might include redesign or expansion of the database in order to accommodate increases in data occurrences. It is recognised that such activities may well be bundled for the purposes of regression, integration and user acceptance testing
Adaptive maintenance - The modification of software product, performed after delivery, to keep a software product usable in a changed or changing environment. Note: adaptive maintenance provides enhancements necessary to accommodate changes in the environment in which a software product must operate. The changes are those that must be made to keep pace with the changing environment. For example, the operating system may be upgraded and some changes may be made to accommodate the new operating system. Note: for the purposes of the ISBSG M&S standard the adaptive maintenance to be included is that often called minor enhancements (see entry in Glossary) and are taken to require less than five staff days of effort
Corrective maintenance - The reactive modification of a software product performed after delivery to correct discovered problems. Note: the modification repairs the software product to satisfy requirements.
Management effort - This is the time that cannot be directly attributed to the maintenance of an application (e.g. Administration or Personnel management).

Support Effort

User Help and Advice - Effort hours spent on Help Desk Calls for this application made during the benchmarking period. These may be direct calls, emails or issues raised via a query logging system.
Problem Investigation - Effort hours spent on support activity of problem investigation, which is carried out in order to determine if a reported incident is in fact a defect, or an error in user documentation or training or merely a user error.
Queries and Quick Service - Effort hours spent on one-time questions that are not part of the application and can be delivered by the support team on request of the user. .A Query is a one-time extraction from the application data . A Quick Service is the provision of a one-time service that involves some manipulation of the data in the database
Management effort - This is the time that cannot be directly attributed to the support of an application (e.g. Administration or Personnel management).

Maintenance and Support Team Size - The number of people (in whole numbers) regardless of their availability who are assigned to maintenance and support of this application.