Characteristics of Application Software Maintenance Maintenance and enhancement of application software consume a major portion of the total life cycle cost of a system. Rough estimates of the total systems and programming resources consumed range as high as 75-80 percent in each category. However, the area has been given little attention in the literature. To analyze the problems in this area a questionnaire was developed and pretested. It was then submitted to 120 organizations. Respondents totaled 69. Responses were analyzed with the SPSS statistical package. The results of the analysis indicate that: (1) maintenance and enhancement do consume much of the total resources of systems and programming groups; (2) maintenance and enhancement tend to be viewed by management as at least somewhat more important than new application software development; (3) in maintenance and enhancement, problems of a management orientation tend to be more significant than those of a technical orientation; and (4) user demands for enhancements and extension constitute the most important management problem area. CACM June, 1978 Lientz, B. Swanson, E. Tompkins, G. Software maintenance, use of productivity aids, management and technical issues 3.50 4.6 CA780605 DH February 26, 1979 11:59 AM 3092 5 3092 3092 5 3092 3092 5 3092