The document discusses how lean and agile methodologies can be applied to application maintenance services (AMS). It defines AMS and its key components, including a work ticket queue, business prioritization of tickets, release planning, and a support team. The document argues that AMS is well-suited for lean because its components align with lean principles like iterative delivery, minimizing waste, and continuous value delivery. It provides examples of lean enhancements for AMS project management and reporting, such as daily stand-ups and visual status reporting.

1. Lean AMS
Lean/Agile Myth #34

2. Lean/Agile Myth #34
• Lean and Agile Methodologies are only applicable for
greenfield opportunities
- Not applicable for brownfield
- Not applicable for Package Integration (Thursday @ 9:00 AM)
- Not applicable for Application Maintenance Services

3. Agenda
• What are Application Maintenance Services?
• Application Maintenance Services Key Components
• Why are Application Maintenance Services an Ideal test
bed for Lean?
• Key Components of Lean AMS Services
• Questions

4. • What are Application Maintenance Services?

5. Application Maintenance Services
• Application Maintenance Services are the services that
are used to support the evolution of a system between
the initial development of the system and the de-
commissioning.
• This includes:
- Defect Fixing
- Enhancements
- Release Planning and execution
- Project and Defect Management

6. • Application Maintenance Services Key Components

7. Application Maintenance Services
Components
Business Priorization and
Work Ticket Queue
Business Value
Project
Management and
Reporting
Support Team Release Planning

8. Work Ticket Queue
• At the heart of Application Maintenance Services is a
queue or list of all the defects and enhancements that
have been reported and requested.
• This list is usually kept in true defect systems but can
also be kept in Sharepoint Lists or Excel Spreadsheets

9. Business Priorization and Business Value
• Another key component is the active involvement of the
business stakeholders to priorize all of the work tickets
• In addition, the business is also heavily involved in
designing and determining the composition of the
releases
• Usually the priorization is done at the time of reporting of
the defect, and then validated on a recurring basis
• There is also the additional focus on business value for
each and every ticket. There is limited opportunity to
‘gold plate’ solutions.

10. Release Planning
• Release are planned in Application Maintenance
Services in a very iterative manner
- Items are reviewed with the business to determine the items
which will return the most value
- This is reviewed and a schedule is created based on the
capacity of the support team
- The release size is a negotiation to maximize efficiency and time
to market
- Plan to schedule recurring releases to provide
recurring/predictable business value

11. Support Team
• Application Maintenance Services as usually supported
by a semi-permanent team
• This team includes resources to resolve work tickets
from start to finish. This includes:
- Project Management
- Analysis
- Development
- Testing
- Implementation

12. Project Management and Reporting
• Application Maintenance Services Project Management
and Reporting are typically satisfied by the following
processes:
- Textual Status Reporting
- Weekly team meetings
- Work Ticket Reporting

13. • Why are Application Maintenance Services an Ideal test
bed for Lean?

14. Lean Principles Refresher
• Before we review why Application Maintenance Services
are an ideal test bed for Lean, let’s do a Lean Principles
Refresher

15. Lean Software Development
• Lean Software development is a style of software
development that emphasizes customer satisfaction
through continuous delivery of functional software. In
contrast to traditional software development methods,
lean developers liaise continuously with business clients.
• Their objective is to deliver working software as
frequently as every two weeks during a project, and
welcome changes to the requirements in response to
evolving business needs.

16. Lean Software Development
• The most crucial aspect of Lean is the execution of the
project in iterations and quick feedback loops possible
because of these iterations. It is essential to note that
these iterations to not just apply to construction, they
also apply to the following tasks:
- Project Management and Planning
- Analysis
- Technical Design
- Testing
- Deployment

17. Lean Software Development
• Iteration planning is ‘the’ key planning initiative
- Iterations need to be planned in conjunction with the client to
accomplish the following:
• Deliver functionality to define the cadence and tempo of the project
• Deliver functionality to deliver real value to the client
• Deliver functionality to reduce and minimize risk for the entire project
• Lessons learned from one iteration must feed into subsequent iterations so
that we don’t execute the project in iterations with similar results, but that we
execute the project in iterations with better results.
- We execute better, smarter, and quicker

18. Lean Software Development Principles
• Eliminate Waste
- The three biggest wastes in software development are:
- Extra Features
- Churn
- Crossing Boundaries
• Build Quality In
- If you routinely find defects in your verification process, your process is defective.
- Mistake-Proof Code with Test-Driven Development
- Stop Building Legacy Code
- The Big Bang is Obsolete

19. Lean Software Development Principles
• Create Knowledge
- Planning is useful. Learning is essential.
- Use the Scientific Method
- Standards Exist to be Challenged and Improved
- Predictable Performance is Driven by Feedback
• Defer Commitment
- Abolish the idea that it is a good idea to start development with a complete
specification.
- Break Dependencies
- Maintain Options
- Schedule Irreversible Decisions at the Last Responsible Moment

20. Lean Software Development Principles
• Deliver Fast
- Lists and queues are buffers between organizations that simply slow things
down.
- Rapid Delivery, High Quality, and Low Cost are Fully Compatible
- Queuing Theory Applies to Development, not Just Servers
- Limit Work to Capacity
• Respect People
- Engaged, thinking people provide the most sustainable competitive advantage.
- Teams Thrive on Pride, Commitment, Trust, and Applause
- Provide Effective Leadership
- Respect Partners
• Optimize the Whole
- Brilliant products emerge from a unique combination of opportunity and
technology.
- Focus on the Entire Value Stream
- Deliver a Complete Product
- Measure UP

21. Lean Mandatory Requirements
• Iteration length
- Maximum Iteration length of 1 month
• Day 1 planning
• No changes after Day 1
• Day 30 – Demo and installation
• Vision must be created before iterations start
- Technical (proof of concepts, architecture and vision)
- Business (storyboard, requirements document at least 20% complete)
- Delay decisions as long as possible. But make architectural or other decisions
early if they are required.
• Daily progress meetings (15 minutes maximum)
- 3 questions
- What have you worked on since last meeting
- What are you planning to work on next?
- Do you have any issues you require assistance on?

22. Lean Mandatory Requirements
• Test driven development
- Function specification/test case combined if it makes sense.
- Developer also writes the test cases.
- Test driven development where it makes sense. This approach may apply more
to client functionality than batch or nightly processes.
• Requires full access to business users or stakeholders.
(Preferably on site)

23. Lean Mandatory Requirements
• Frequent Builds
- Build at least weekly internally
- Build at least monthly for customer deployment
- It is acceptable that the first deployment to the client may not occur until
Iteration2.
• Sub-deliverables/task size about 1 week maximum (if
possible)
• Visual Project Management
- This is done with a combination of providing the project plan and tasks on
SharePoint or other visual means

24. • Why are Application Maintenance Services an Ideal test
bed for Lean?

25. Lean Application Maintenance Services
Components
Work Ticket Queue Business Priorization
• Backlog • Frequent Stakeholder Involvement
• Limited ‘Gold Plating’
Project
Management and
Reporting
Support Team Release Planning
• Velocity • Deliver in Iterations
• Deliver continuous value

26. Project Management and Reporting
• But where does that leave us with Project Management
and Reporting
• This is one of the large areas that sometimes is not done
in a Lean Fashion
• There are several simple enhancements that can be
made to manage AMS in a Lean Fashion
• One of the biggest issues in AMS Project Management is
providing the visibility into the progress and status.

27. Daily Standups
• Implement daily 15 minute stand-ups
- What did you do yesterday
- What are you planning to do today
- Do you have any issues?

28. Visual Project Management
• Visual Status Reporting
- Graphical Status Reporting
- Ticket Board – Literally
- Service Level Dashboard
- Service Level Trend Dashboard

29. Graphical Status Reporting
50
45
40
Number of Tickets resolved last week
35
Number of New Tickets since the last
30 status report
Number of Tickets scheduled to be
25 resolved last week that were not resolved
Number of Tickets scheduled to be worked
on this week
20
Number of Tickets scheduled to be
resolved this week
15
Number of Tickets not yet started
10
5
0
1 2 3 4 5 6

30. Ticket Board
Work Ticket Status Board
Resource Triaged Backlog Analysis Construction Testing Complete Issue
Manager
Business
Analyst
1
Business
Analyst
2
Java
Developer
System
User
Analyst
Vendor

31. Service Level Dashboard
Severity Response Workaround Final Resolution
Severity 1: Critical
● ■ ●
Severity 2: High
■ ■ ♦
Severity 3:
Moderate ■ ■ ■
Severity 4: Low
♦ ♦ ●

32. Service Level Trend Dashboard
1
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6 severity 1
severity 2
0.5
severity 3
0.4
severity 4
0.3 SLA
0.2
SLA
0.1 severity 4
0 severity 3
january severity 2
february
march
april severity 1
may
june
july

33. Conclusion
• Application Maintenance Services are an ideal area to
try Agile or Lean processes to see how they will work in
your corporation
• The components of AMS lend themselves easily to
iterative development with high stakeholder involvement
• The semi-permanent nature of the team also allows for
the establishment of team ‘velocity’
• The work ticket queue is the product backlog we hear
discussed frequently in Agile circles

34. Background
• The information for this presentation has been based on
Application Maintenance Services that Protegra has
delivered for:
- Multiple Government departments
- Multiple Financial institutions
- Multiple Insurance companies
• Protegra currently provides AMS services for 7
corporations.

35. Questions?