Documentation Maintenance

Definition

Documentation maintenance is the activity consisting of the cohesive collection of all tasks that are primarily performed to incorporate minor fixes and enhancements into documentation after deployment for use by the user organizations (i.e., between development projects to produce major new versions).

Goals

The typical goals of documentation maintenance are to:

• Ensure correct functioning of the documentation until the next version is deployed.

Objectives

The typical objectives of the documentation maintenance subactivity are to:

• Perform adaptive maintenance by making minor modifications due to:
  • Business changes (e.g., reengineering, competition, reorganization, business-internal politics).
  • Legal changes (e.g., new legislation, new regulations).
  • Technology changes (e.g., hardware, software, communications, technology standardization, commercial packages).
  • Physical changes (e.g., reconfiguration of data center, transfer to new locations).
  • Personnel changes (e.g., changes to the users, user management, information technology staff).
• Perform corrective maintenance by correcting minor documentation defects.
• Perform perfective maintenance by making minor improvements in correct documentation (for readability).

Examples

Kinds of documentation maintenance include:

• Adaptive maintenance, which is maintenance performed to make the document usable in a changed environment.
• Corrective maintenance, which is maintenance performed to fix minor defects in the document.
• Perfective maintenance, which is maintenance performed to improve a merely adequate quality factor such as maintainability, performance, understandability, etc.

Examples of documentation maintenance include:

• Maintenance of development documentation
• Maintenance of user documentation

Preconditions

Documentation maintenance typically may begin when the following preconditions hold:

• The delivery phase has completed.

Completion Criteria

Documentation maintenance is typically complete when the following postconditions hold:

• The maintained version of the documentation has been either removed from service or replaced by a new version.

Tasks

Documentation maintenance typically involves the maintenance team performing the following maintenance tasks in an iterative, incremental, and parallel manner:

• Maintenance Planning
• Defect Identification
• Defect Analysis
• Defect Correction
• Defect Status Reporting

Environments

Documentation maintenance is typically performed using the following environment(s) and associated tools:

• Production Environments:
  • Client Environment
  • Contact Center Environment
  • Content Management Environment
  • Data Center Environment
• Tools:
  • Configuration Management Tool
  • Test tool
  • Defect tracking tool

Work Products

Document maintenance typically results in the production of the following work products:

• Maintenance Plan
• Updated system data, hardware, or software document.
• Updated developer or user documentation

Phases

The documentation maintenance activity tasks are typically performed during the following phases:

• Business Strategy: Not Applicable
• Business Optimization: Not Applicable
• Initiation: Not Applicable
• Construction: Not Applicable
• Initial Production: Ongoing
• Full-Scale Production: Ongoing
• Delivery: Ongoing
• Usage: Ongoing
• Retirement: Not Applicable

Guidelines

• Document maintenance depends on the maintainability of the document being maintained:
  • Adaptive maintenance depends on adaptability and extensibility.
  • Corrective maintenance depends on correctability.
  • Perfective maintenance depends on maintainability.
  • Preventative maintenance depends on correctability and maintainability.
• Major modifications do not occur during maintenance but rather during the next development cycle.
• This activity is documented using the typical configuration for large projects. It is intended to be configured (i.e., instantiated, extended, and tailored) to meet the needs of specific projects.
• The preconditions of this activity should be the union of the preconditions of its constituent tasks.
• The completion criteria for this activity should be the union of the postconditions of its constituent tasks.