SOFTWARE EXPECTATION MANAGEMENT BY MEANS OF SERVICE LEVEL AGREEMENTS IN SOFTWARE MAINTENANCE

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1 SOFTWARE EXPECTATION MANAGEMENT BY MEANS OF SERVICE LEVEL AGREEMENTS IN SOFTWARE MAINTENANCE A.C. Tonini, M.T.Silva, M.M.Spínola (Antonio Carlos Tonini, Márcia Terra da Silva, Mauro de Mesquita Spínola) Production Engineering Department, Polytechnic School, University of São Paulo University, Av. Prof. Almeida Prado, andar, Cidade Universitária, São Paulo, São Paulo, Brasil Abstract A large part of entrepreneurial activities are conducted by means of softwares, which increases the relevance of maintenance services provided by developers to clients. The Service Level Agreements (SLAs) have been one of the few measures to balance the interests of both, but, most of the time they much more consider the conditions imposed by developers. Based on a research conducted as a Multiple Cases Study, this paper approaches this issue with the reflections offered by the literature on service operation management. It points to the urgency of SLAs to absorb the intangible aspects that direct clients action and identifies some points of improvement, such as: personalization, understanding the clients real problems, reliability management, speed of matching client and service attendant and the scalability of quality degree in the maintenance service. Keywords: Service Level Agreement, Service Management, Client s expectations, Software maintenance 1 INTRODUCTION Software client-users want developers to deliver high quality products, quickly, according to their perception of urgency, at low price and, also, that developers provide them with the necessary support during all the time they use the software, even if they have not hired this kind of service. The quality perceived by the client-user transcends the software itself and is closely linked to availability, to operationality and to intangible aspects, such as the reliability in the results produced [1]. Under the developers point of view, there is no significant difference between developing a new software or maintaining an already existing one. However, the structure set for maintenance should take into account the instability of demand, the urgency, the unbalance between service capacity and resource allocation, besides the imprecision for determining quality [2]. The establishment of Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for maintenance services is one of the few initiatives seeking to conform the interests of clients and developers. SLAs may to define in measurable terms the service to be performed, the level of service that is acceptable, and the means to determine if the service is being provided at the agreed upon levels. Nevertheless, SLAs are established by developers, and substantially consider their points of view about attend capacity, possible response time and software quality level. SLAs have indeed mean service warranty for the clients [3]. This paper approaches this issue and compares the SLAs with the recommendations present in the service operation management literature and suggests some improvements that may positively contribute to their relationship. 2 SERVICE AS A PRODUCT Goods are defined as tangible things or articles of trade, that can be created, transferred and used later, while services are intangible or perishable things and can be created and used simultaneously; while the consumer cannot retain the actual service after it is produced, the effect of the service can be retained [4]. Although the clear difference between service and good attributes (intangibility, perishability, heterogeneity and simultaneity of use), it is possible to understand that all manufacture companies have service processes as much as service companies transform goods in their processes. Different customers are attracted by different attributes. In order to appeal the clients, some companies attempt to offer the lowest price; other clients require higher quality (in terms of performance, features, or appearance) even though this might necessitate a higher price. Still others seek to differentiate themselves through superior flexibility, dependability, speed of response, or innovativeness. A given company may try to math its competitors on several competitive dimensions and thereby offer the best value or other form of compromise between competing attributes. But when it comes down to the final attempt at persuasion, the company hopes the customer s choice will be swayed by its product s (or service s) specific form of superiority [5]. Managing then, requires that the company understand the service concept for its business, that is, the value of the service for the client, the process to deliver the service, the results and main attributes of the service. In addition to the stated service, the companies sell atmosphere, convenience, consistent quality, pleasant interpersonal relations, status, anxiety removal, and so on. A service level is an elusive concept, because expected service levels are met by delivering those components of the service that the consumer perceives are important. When the perceived service level is combined with the price, the perceived value is created. Service level is a measure of the levels of the explicit and implicit benefits provided to the consumer and is comparable to the quality level of a manufactured good in sense that it specifies performance characteristics of the product. The only difference is that the quality level of the manufactured product can more readily be quantified [4]. Since the consumer has a key role in the definition an evaluation of the result (product, service or both), the company must have a clear understanding of client / consumer expectations and perceptions and it is faced with the critical tasks of defining, integrating, evaluating, and redefining the delivered service. The main key-points that involve service and production must consider: availing goods, explicit and implicit rights,

2 tangible and intangible benefits, performance characteristics of the work, service atmosphere and image of facilities and attitudes of the employees [4]. 3 SOFTWARE MAINTENANCE PROCESSES Software development is, at the same time, a handcraft activity depending on human creativity, an industrial activity, liable of organization, and an activity of service relation depending on the intelectual interaction between developer and client. Norm NBR ISO/IEC :1998 precisely defines the software development life cycle [6]. For this norm, what distinguishes a maintenance process from the original development is simply the previous existence of the software and the fact that it triggers processes execution. The types of maintenance praticticed in software are corrective maintenance (recovering the software operationality), evolutive maintenance (inserting new funcionalities and modifying the existing ones) and preventive (seeking hidden flaws) [3]. For the client/users point of view, the service provider is a unique entity and there is not difference among the areas, services, procedures and products. Their main need is that the software may is usefull every time, without flaws. They need provider service to maintains these software attributes [6]. Although the IEEE Standard 729 defines a taxonomy for software flaws, the most important is that for them to represent improvement opportunities, they must contain the following elements: the software component where the flaw has occurred, the moment when it has occurred, the symptoms have observed, the deriving consequence, the frequency of occurrence, the cause of the flaw, among others [7]. 4 SERVICE LEVEL AGREEMENTS SLAs were created in the 1990s and were set to clearly establish the delivered services by the Information Technology (IT) area for the remainder of the organization, formalizing the relationships between developers and clients. As the IT services began to be outsourced, the SLAs served to regulate the relationships external to the organization [8]. SLAs are essentially informal or formal contracts between the provider of a service and the user or client of that service. Their purpose is to define the performance required of the service and to put in place measurement mechanisms whereby actual performance against targets can be monitored. Typical features with may be include in a SLA are: hours of service availability, response time, punctuality targets, maximum acceptable service down time in a given period and, reliability targets. A crucial consideration is that SLAs should focus on quantified targets which can then be subsequently measured against [8]. Their main advantages are: allowing a clear specification of the service to be conducted, at the adequate granularity level, meeting the agreed deadline and the reliability of the client-users, specifying the penalities for what has not been done (fine, reimbursement, contract annulment), allowing an efficaceous management of risks, prevention and contingency for not providing the service, by means of service quality indicators mutually acceptable and agreed upon, and providing visibility to the delivered service and allowing the valorization and the remuneration for the delivered services [9]. The key point is that SLAs offer to the client and to the provider an element of service choice, contributing for the flexibility of the business and the production [8]. SLAs are built based on quantitative attributes, which may be estimated and measured, allowing better visibility and transparency of the delivered service contracts. They are usually represented by percentual values of deviations between what was established in the contract and what was actually done [10]. For software maintenance services, the main attributes are: time measures (time for executing the service), service deadline, availability, lack of service (down time), amount of service conducted (volume), performance of the service conducted (speed, relating volume and time), number of flaws, errors and deffects, complexity, nimbleness in decision-making, amount and availability of resources employed, accuracy (assertivity degree) of the work done and reliability in the results of the services conducted. 5 SERVICE OPERATION MANAGEMENT When stressing the importance of the relations between service providers and clients, the literature on service operation allows identifying points that may become significant improvements in SLAs, since the work real value starts to also contemplate the perception and the subjective and intangible value that the client-user attributes to the service. At the limit, this value is what guarantees the perpetuation or the termination of the services relationship. The literature details the role of each of the three entities involved in a service relationship: the client-user, the service provider company and the attendant (agent) of the service. The analysis proposed in this paper concentrates only on the impact of the client-user relationship with the other two entities: the service promise relationship with the company and face-to-face moments relationship with the agent who releases the service. The main points are as follows: (a) there is a differentiation between need and expectation, not grasped by Software Engineering. Need lies in the real and tangible level; it is expressed by the necessary requirements for executing the client-user s services. Expectation, on the other hand, is intangible and subjective, difficult to be verbalized, but it is the one to determine the perception of the quality of the way the work is to be done and of the very result of the work [11]; (b) the work conducted by an attendant shows an emotional side, in the form of mood, courtesy, smile etc during the moments of contact (meeting and communicating) directly with the client-user face-to-face or voice-to-voice. The attendant s posture is part of the final product and, for this reason, it is a service value component and may (and should) be assessed [12]; (c) many times client-users go over the boundaries of formal relationship and fail o notice the range limits of the services hired and feel they have the right to receive them [13]; (d) in the contacts with client-users, the attendants are generally the first negotiators. Thus, in the assessment of the cost-benefit relation when serving clients, the delivered services and received services by the client should be taken into account. For this reason, direct attendants must be trained to become good dealers and to allow them to develop creative solutions to solve problems and reach an acceptable solution for both the client and the organization, thus guaranteeing that the relationship between the provider service and the client-user will not be shaken [14]; (e) when the use of a product is intrinsically related with client-serving services, the value attributed by the client-

3 user necessarily encompasses the quality of the service execution process [15]. In this sense, it is necessary for the company to map all its activities involving the delivered service to the client-user, starting from back-office, support, front-line and support services [16]. Besides the measurements referring only to the technical and service specification universe, it is important to survey all the service attributes that may be quantitatively or qualitatively measured by the client-user [17]; (f) the presence of client-user in the several phases of the software maintenance services constitutes one more variable to be considered in services planning, execution and control. For the service provider, this can turn into a difficulty factor, once the whole team is seen as being controlled by the client-user, who forces to finish the job quickly [18]; (g) the flaws and the errors in serving the client constitute one of the most difficult managerial problems to be dealt with, as they involve the recovery of the client-user s trust. Considering the matrix variety x volume, it is expected that, the more personalized a service is, the more service guarantees become differentiation elements and the more effort will be spent by the organization [19]; (h) client-users expectations are not always homogeneous, which makes it necessary to group clientusers into segments based on their personalization needs, maintenance requirements, demand intensity. The segmentation is done to provide an optimum service level to specific client-users segments. This reasoning stresses the opposite, that is, it shows to be inefficient to provide a higher service level than that expected or desired by clientusers. The excess turns into extra costs for the companies and higher prices for the client-user who, in turn, may migrate to services alternatives that meet their real needs at lower costs [20]; (i) the customer-user s and developer s emotional load shows in a different way. By the customer-user, through the urgency of the software readiness, independent of the defect correction complexity; by the developer, through the application of its skill to solve the defect, independent of the correction time [3] [21]; (j) a crucial point is the client-user s indefinite attitude when defining services and the continuous change in the scope of the work. In this case, the quality of communication and the empathy in the relation between client-user and service provider become actually more important than the work done [21]; (k) starting from the principle that maintenance services are usually reactive concerning a certain event experienced by the client-user and that a reasonable response is not found in the service, the organization should develop an adequate structure and systematics to deal with complaints (understood in its widest possible sense) formulated by its client-users. This implies providing the client-user with visibility, acessibility, readiness, objectivity and reliability necessary for the client to monitor the maintenance services course by it [22]. 6 CASES STUDY The research conducted according to the Multiple Cases Study methodology analyzed the use of SLAs in three software developer organizations, due to verify the objectives and criteria of this practice and still to know the main changes that the companies intended to do. Two propositions were established: software maintenance SLAs are defined due to developers objectives and the changes and new features consider the intangible aspects and the expectations of the clients. The research was conducted by means of non-structured interviews and the dissemination of the data was duly authorized, since the origin was kept a secret. For being elements of deals with client-users, a series of other clauses is expected to be expressed by the SLAs, which constitutes a limitation to the considerations formulated. 6.1 Company 1 - Corporate system developer The maintenance services of this organization comprehend a set of activities, such as: providing general information, support, use, installation and configuration of the applications different versions, replacement of the application systems operationality, correction of localized errors, implementation of compulsory modifications due to the legislation in force, implementation of safety tools and auditing, implementation of improvements related to performance. The delivered services may be provide at four levels: 1st level: services of generic information on the software and support to be used on the telephone service (help desk), there being no responsibility for parameters establishment or use follow-ups; 2nd level: support services to be used on the telephone service (help desk), which may be responsible for small parameters establishment and use follow-up by monitoring or by forwarding use scripts to users. It records the problems detected by users; 3rd level: forwarding the problem to the maintenance team when it is not possible to solve the problem remotely. The teams solve the problems locally, at the clients premises; 4th level: service conducted by a team or a professional demanded by the client-user. All the maintenance calls are controlled, allowing the following funcionalities: register, record, control, forward, SLAs calculation, generation of management and operational reports with different periodicities. The procedures for improving the services are: (a) help desk and field professionals constant training, responsible for the 1st and 2nd level services, respectively, for the softwares content, for the legislation in force and for the implementation and use alternatives, technical knowledge and command of service scripts; (b) monitoring of the quality monitoring of the professionals in the 1st and 2nd levels teams by means of research on clients satisfaction; (c) keeping recorded copies of the 1st level services, such as register and a measure to clear any doubt for mistaken service; (d) establishment of the ombudusman activity to listen to complaints, criticism and to act as facilitator of daily issues, with power enough to implement emergency solutions. 6.2 Company 2 Call Center Concerning the scope of the application softwares, the services may involve the basic version of the software and the legal modifications or also the new versions for clientusers, besides the specific developments made by the clients-users themselves and integrated to the software distributed by the company. This company clients manufacture telephony products, in which the software will be embedded. Each new order means a great project for maintenance, personalization and assembly of components previously developed. The main elements dealt with the clients and that are part of the SLA refer to: (a) availability of resources in the off-shore contracts;

4 (b) software correctness and labor productivity, when the maintenance services are the company s responsibility. The availability of resources indicates the percentual of human resources at the client s service along the time agreed upon. The availability measure corresponds to the difference between the total time of the resource in the organization, deducting the general unavailability times. These SLAs are determined by availability bandwidth. The correctness of the software indicates the team efficiency in producing new software versions with high quality. For this, the variations in the deffect rate indicators and of the faultless time in SLAs formulation are used in each of the deliveries. When the variation in the deffect rate or the faultless time rate is negative, this means there was an improvement in the team efficiency and, when it is positive, this means there was a decrease in the team efficiency. SLAs are determined by deffect rate variation bandwidth and by the faultless time rate. Productivity in maintenance is the ratio between the amount of software kept and delivered (in function points) and the amount of total maintenance time employed. SLAs are determined by productivity bandwidth (Function points per man-hour). An improvement observed in this proposal was the establishment of a fine for not meeting the service levels specified in the contract. Thus, the sum charged suffers a progressive reduction the greater is the difference between the real availability and the contractual availability. 6.3 Company 3 Operational System software developer The third case shows the use of SLAs in a software maintenance supply chain. The operational systems software provider develops specific projects, which are maintenance or customization of its base product for different clients. The latter, in turn, are suppliers of application computational systems of general use and need stability and high availability from this platform. The SLA program is part of a comprehensive program of service levels management. By means of the program, clients count on an important set of support and consultancy on details of the operational system. Under the business point of view, the program reduces the development cost and provides greater agility and assertivity in maintenance services and client-serving. The program has a single and standardized structure, organized in service levels with different participation intensity levels, covering from a trivial service up to a partnership and full-time service. The provider team of this type of service is formed by professionals with large experience in the company products, which contributes to the speed in which errors are detected and corrected. The intention was to provide personalized and quick support, with the aid of an experienced team, so as to explore the products full potentiality. SLAs refer to: (a) specific consultancy services related with all the partner software development phases and that require service, support and maintenance of the operational system; (b) pro-joint activity services between the team and each client, who is oriented on planning, construction, revision and laboratory of the software products, so as to optimize development efforts; (c) online support services, with interactivity via telephone or by computational means for the span of time desired by the client. The purpose of this service concerns the new versions of products, warning about critical problems, participation in discussion forums on technology and guaranteed access to the problem and solution data bank; (d) as the clients do not have another operating system alternative, the company did not worry about the clients expectations. However, due to open software competition, the company has implemented services responsiveness (sending response) with deadlines and presence levels determined for dealing with any kind of occurrence, dealt with personally or remotely (telephone or web). 6.4 Compararison between SLAs practice and the literature on services The first proposition was answered affirmatively by all of the companies, that is, SLAs are elaborated by the developer, considering the experience accumulated in delivered service and in their service capacity. For this reason, it is necessary that, when providing a service to a new client-user, there is an adequacy period so that both developer and client-user understand each other and adjust their best service levels, guided by a mutual trust atmosphere. About the second proposition, the company 1 and company 2 have showed some improvement aspects based on the needs and expectations of their clients and, the company 3 has took some measures just to obtain more liability from its clients, according its point of view. The assessment is always a human action and, therefore, depends on individual and personal value measures. It would be important that the data for assessment were obtained mechanically and automatically, and that the participation of other people besides client-user and developer were occasionally promoted to make a new judgment and, also, that the due adjustments were made, avoiding the occurrence of unfairness. In the maintenance operations, practically the whole performance is oriented by service levels. So that it is valid both for the developer and the client-user, the performance management must be conducted by both interested parties, differently from what is practiced and what is established in the IT management literature. This strategy provides greater credibility to the operation and, therefore, an extended longevity to the contract. SLAs are usually elaborated by the IT management, considering day-to-day normality situations. SLAs should also support the differentiation between delivering a good service and a good product, which would formally allow contemplating the delivery of products of lower quality in critical and emergency situations. Furthermore, the services must be done as quickly as possible. Once formally established, SLAs do not admit flexibility. An important advancement would be considering the abilities, motivation and heterogeneity of the client-users expectations, as well as the inclusion of new solution alternatives jointly identified, according to the easiness or difficulty that these attributes might offer to improve or worsen service relationship. It is important for SLAs to be established according to certain client-users segments, which will allow structuring the software maintenance services more adequately. This procedure is important for more efficacious agreements to be established, at lower cost and longer-lasting. For some client-users, providing exclusive and high aggregate value services is a decisive factor for the relationship and, for this reason, they may absorb the costs deriving from differentiated service policies. Having in mind that many times people confuse what a software corrective or evolutive maintenance really is, SLAs should distinguish the moments of service execution, due to the influence of the interaction client-user and service provider (presence of client-user), client-user-

5 moment (urgency or normality) and client-user-process (requirement of process quality). Although Software Engineering has very accurately outlined the requirements elicitation process, which involves the manifestation of the requirement by the clientuser and its interpretation (specification of the software functional and non-functional aspects), SLAs should clearly explicit these two components, which would make service relationship easier. SLAs should also measure whether the client-user s expectation was really met. For this, the aspects of the software non-functional attributes must be emphasized, such as usability, maintainability, consistency, robustness, visibility, accessibility, response readiness, among others. 7 CONCLUSION The consideration of the service operation management approach allows identifying gaps in the software maintenance SLAs, constituting important elements for increasing client-users reliability and perpetuating the service relationship between software developer and clientuser. The main points of improvement noticed are: personalization and flexibilization of criteria, understanding client-users real problems, client-users participation in the process, reliability management, speed of client-user and service provider meeting, scalability and joint assessment of the quality and expectation degrees, client-users segmentation per type of requirement, continuous training and capacitation, data collection about every flaws, authority delegation to solve problems, financial compensation and, technological up-to-date. Service operating literature may to be used to improvement SLA by emphasizing some knowledge, emotion and business aspects, as follow: specific capacitation, involved people expectation, empathy, liability, contracted and possible service comprehensiveness and relationship. Even considering the limitation of the research, the paper concludes that IT management conducted by means of SLAs may very plausibly explain the behavior and the tendency of controlled variables, in terms of cost and availability. This allows the negotiations between the service provider and hirer to occur based on objective and real criteria. 8 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The authors are gratefully thanked the companies researched for having authorized the dissemination of its data. 9 REFERENCES [1] Corrêa, H. L., Caon, M. Gestão de serviços: lucratividade por meio de operações e de satisfação do cliente, Atlas, [2] Poppendieck, M., Poppendieck, T. Lean software development: an agile toolkit, Addison-Wesley, [3] Fenton, N. E., Pfleeger, S. L., Software metrics: a rigorous approach, International Thomson Computer Press, 2 nd, [4] Sasser, W., Olsen, R. P., Wyckoff, D. D., Management of Service Operations. Allyn and Bacon. USA, [5] Hayes, R. H., Upton, D. M., Operations-Based Strategy. 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