[Case] The Scrum proposal

Please refer to the Link for the case made by my lecturer.

After reading the case, I identified some significant points (P):

P1. Most of the engineer's time is for support and maintenance
P2. There is an increasing trend for the support queue activity overtime (Y1 - Y4)
P3. The current project development process is not suitable for existing product maintenance. Management team and engineers propose Agile iterative development lifecycle.
P4. Agile raises an significant concern related to current certified ISO9001.

My recommendations and support arguments include:

For P1 and P2: I don't see the increase in support and maintenance time is an issue because it is an increasing in customer's demands. The demands come with revenue. The company can make  money through supporting and maintenance fee. One of my client back in Vietnam did recognize this opportunity and turn it into revenue by divide a product for a customer to a specific team. The team will follow the product to the end (Development to Maintenance). By this way, each team becomes a profit center. In fact, my client reduced the software package and installation fee (one time revenue) to attract more customers and charge more in support and maintenance activities (recurring revenue).


For P3 and P4: Agile is suitable for support and maintenance as well as ISO9001 with the following modifications:

1. Ensure placed controls and documentations throughout the product development and maintenance processes. (ISO9001)
2. Product for a specific customer is now allocated to team. Team lead now will become review bugs, customer requests and assign to the next sprint or iteration.
3. Pay more attentions on SLA agreement in term of fee, scope for support, time, and quality of the patches.