Pressures Faced in it

Characteristics of Outsourcing Contracts

• In outsourcing contracts, the client retains ownership of the IT strategy while the vendor assumes responsibility for management processes and day-to-day supervision of the resources
• A well-structured outsourcing contract makes the vendor responsible not only for a defined package of services, but for the delivery of business value from those services

Service Metrics

• Performance related service-level metrics are a key component of most outsourcing contracts
• Growing emphasis is being placed on measuring and evaluating the services’ business value
• Accordingly, metrics demonstrating continuous improvement and business value are becoming a more common component of outsourcing agreements

Service Level Agreements

• In order to offer a competitive service that, at the same time, is objectively measurable, the maintenance organization must commit itself to accomplish its services according to some indicators
• These Service Level Agreements can also be used for planning the non-plannable maintenance

Risks

• There are many good works analyzing the problem of risks once the maintenance process has started, but there is a lack of guidelines to help managers identify and estimate the risks in the initial stages of projects
• One situational factor may affect one or more risk factors, and each risk factor may affect on one or more business areas

Theoretical Foundations

6 Characteristics of Describing Software Development

• Complexity
• Degree of Commitment
• Compatibility
• Efficiency
• Benefit
• Risk and Uncertainty

Complexity vs Radicalness

• Complexity is a measure of the number and variety of elements and their interconnections in a system
• Radicalness is largely a perceptual measure which describes the perceived amount of change in the system at each level of abstraction