Individual solutions

Every valid reported defect is delivered in a solution and made available for the customer to download. This mechanism requires a mature system of solution delivery. Such a system must support Software Integrity. A customer should be forced to install all delivered earlier solutions to avoid inconsistency. When a customer did not follow up he could sometimes be faced with installing large amounts of solutions.

Before you decide to deliver individual solutions you need to know that the way back will not easily be accepted by customers, they are quite spoiled. For them it is the best way of solution delivery, for you it is the most costly way to deliver solutions.

For escalations this way of solution delivery is optimal because of the short time span the solution can be delivered in.

An solution text should guide the solution. The solution text should contain at least:

  • a problem description
  • a solution description
  • and installation instructions if required

Weekly and Monthly dumps

When you deliver large amounts of individual solutions you could help your customers with collecting those in weekly and/or monthly dumps.

Weekly or Monthly dumps should be guided with a collection of related solution texts.

Collected solutions

Instead of individual solution delivery you could collect several in a dump. Especially when the solutions relate or even inter act a collection is a logical format to deliver solution. For escalations this way of solution delivery is not quite optimal because the time span is longer than with individual solutions.

Collected solutions should be guided with a collection of related solution texts.

Service Packs

Service Pack delivery could be on top of all your other ways of solution delivery but it could also be used stand alone. It is more cheap to deliver service pack wise than any other of the mentioned solution delivery types.  For escalations this way of solution delivery is bad because the time span is long.

A service pack should be guided with a collection of related solution texts (Release Notes) and installation instructions.

These service pack installation instructions should describe:

  • Conditions that need to be fulfilled before the installation takes place
  • Dependencies with other products
  • Instructions on how to install the service pack
  • Short description of solutions involved
  • Short description of functional changes involved

Individual solution on customer system

To overcome the problem with escalations or other urgent issues in combination with service pack delivery you could provide an individual solution on the customer system. The customer continues and you provide the solution to all customers in the next service pack.

An solution text should guide the progress update about the (created) solution on his system.

Feature Packs

The difference with a service pack is that a Feature pack contains new functionality. This way of delivery is more for Development because Maintenance is focused on defect fixing and not on introducing new functionality. Your customer need to be aware of new introduced functionality. It could quite set up his system. He has to digest the changes within his organization. Keep in mind that the latter is not always easy for customers.

A feature pack should be guided with a collection of reference guides, user manuals, tutorials and installation instructions.

These feature pack installation instructions should describe:

  • Conditions that need to be fulfilled before the installation takes place
  • Dependencies with other products
  • Instructions on how to install the feature pack
  • Shofrt description of new functionality