Maintenance vs value creation
In the world of software development, there's a constant tension between maintaining existing systems and building new, value-driven features. Many engineering teams find themselves unable to spend time on necessary maintenance due to the pressures of delivering new features.
Their insistence that it would be better to address maintenance first can often be seen as an unwanted extra cost, and be deprioritised or ignored, leading to increasing technical debt and inefficiencies. Future feature development then takes longer as teams must navigate outdated systems, implement temporary fixes, and work around legacy constraints instead of building efficiently on a solid foundation.
This slowdown frustrates clients, creates the perception that development of new features is costly and inefficient, and ultimately impacts the business's ability to innovate at speed.
This is precisely the challenge Angela Timofte explored in her keynote at ServerlessDays Manchester, Engineering for Impact: Shifting from Maintenance to Value Creation. She shared her experience of joining a team that had reached a critical pain point in their workflow balance where maintenance had become a huge burden due to legacy software and decisions made (or not made) previously.
Angela shared how she and her team were challenged to reduce the maintenance burden from 70% of their time to just 30%, allowing them to focus more on impactful, high-value work.
Her talk introduced a framework for shifting this balance, which she called the "70/30 flip," which involved three key steps:
- 1. Making use of supporting data - Gathering relevant metrics and KPIs to track maintenance vs. value creation efforts.
- 2. Writing out a plan - Defining clear actions to reduce maintenance overhead and improve system efficiency.
- 3. Communicating the plan effectively - Ensuring buy-in from stakeholders and engineering teams to implement changes successfully. Stakeholders must acknowledge and accept the time and costs of change, with future efficiency improvements as the reward.
Our approach
Hearing Angela's talk made me reflect on how we approach maintenance and value creation at Si Novi.
We have embedded proactive maintenance as a core practice of our support retainer service, to make sure we never arrive at that pain point where maintenance becomes a blocker.
Our approach ensures that supported applications remain well-maintained and up-to-date, which allows us to deliver high-value features quickly and cost-effectively.
Instead of tracking KPIs on maintenance vs. value work, we focus on a simple measure: Are our supported applications up to date?
Keeping our clients' supported apps up to date and "developer ready" at all times by performing regular code updates and deployments means that when a client asks for a new feature, or a new phase of work - the app is ready to be worked on.
A real-world example: Medem's enhanced quotation tool
Medem, a leader in gas safety and control systems, relies on a bespoke sales and quotation application we developed and maintain on AWS.
Their team requested a feature update to enhance their quoting process - introducing new product layout capabilities, subtotals, and dynamic total calculations.
Previously, their quoting process required manual calculations, which introduced inefficiencies and the risk of human error. As they put it:
"Adding a total line to the quote is something we've discussed before. It needs to be dynamic and sum everything above it. Lately, we've been hearing more and more: 'Just give me a total!!'"
Because we maintain Medem's application proactively - including regular PHP updates, dependency management, and infrastructure upkeep - we were able to deliver this enhancement quickly. We didn't need to spend time getting the development environment up and running, dealing with outdated libraries, or untangling technical debt.
The result? A swift, seamless deployment within a few days, and a delighted client:
"Definitely making things easier and the new layout I feel has improved it greatly."
The hidden cost of neglected maintenance
So what's the alternative to proactive maintenance? Often, it's a situation where even small feature updates become big projects because the underlying system isn't in a healthy state. Teams may find themselves needing to:
- Upgrade legacy dependencies before new features can be added.
- Address security vulnerabilities before deployments can proceed.
- Rework outdated development environments before coding can begin.
Worse still, when maintenance is continually deferred, technical debt accumulates, and the cost of change increases.
Eventually, businesses may find themselves struggling to release updates or new features. Engineers or service agencies will have to increase durations and pricing for new features to include the battles with unmaintained software, which can make development seem expensive and untenable.
Shifting the mindset: maintenance as an enabler
For many organisations, maintenance is seen as a cost centre - something that must be done but doesn't contribute directly to business goals. In reality, proactive maintenance is an enabler of value creation. By keeping systems in a healthy state, businesses gain:
- Faster feature development - New capabilities can be delivered rapidly without first tackling technical debt.
- Improved reliability - Fewer production issues mean less time firefighting and more time innovating.
- Happier developers - Teams can work on meaningful improvements rather than struggling with brittle, outdated systems.
- Cost savings - Avoiding the need for large-scale rework or emergency fixes reduces long-term expenses.
Practical steps to reduce the maintenance burden
Reducing maintenance overhead and enabling value creation requires a technical approach that prioritises efficiency, resilience, and automation. Here are some key engineering practices that help achieve this:
Implement continuous maintenance
Rather than treating maintenance as a separate, periodic task, integrate it into your regular development workflow. Automate dependency updates, schedule routine code reviews, and adopt a “fix it when you see it” mentality to keep issues from accumulating.
Keep development environments ready to go
One of the most common blockers to fast feature development is a cumbersome setup process. Ensure that developers can spin up a local or cloud-based environment quickly, without needing to troubleshoot outdated dependencies or configuration issues.
Prioritise tech debt reduction
Technical debt is inevitable, but it should be actively managed. Establish a backlog of maintenance tasks and address them alongside new feature development, rather than letting them pile up.
Invest in automated testing and monitoring
High test coverage and robust monitoring reduce the time spent diagnosing and fixing production issues. This allows teams to focus on delivering improvements rather than firefighting.
Shift the mindset: maintenance is part of delivering value
Encourage teams and stakeholders to see maintenance not as a drain on resources but as an essential component of business agility. Transparency of maintenance with stakeholders allows them to make informed decisions. A well-maintained system enables faster iteration, improved user experience, and ultimately, a stronger competitive position.
Conclusion: maintenance as a competitive advantage
At Si Novi, we believe that proactive maintenance isn't just about keeping the lights on - it's about enabling businesses to move faster, respond to customer needs, and continuously create value. Our work with Medem illustrates how a well-maintained system allows for rapid innovation, rather than being a bottleneck.
By shifting focus from maintenance as a burden to maintenance as an enabler, businesses can achieve the same transformation Angela Timofte described - freeing engineering teams to focus on impactful, high-value work.
As an AWS Partner, we leverage the AWS Cloud Value Framework (CVF) as part of our consultancy and engineering activities with clients. One of the pillars of the CVF is Business Agility, which describes how the cloud facilitates rapid experimentation and scalability. By using AWS we can help businesses to deploy resources in minutes and experiment with new ideas quickly. This enhanced business agility helps organisations respond rapidly to market changes and innovate and grow the business more quickly.
If your business is struggling to move quickly due to technical debt and maintenance overhead, it might be time for a different approach. Get in touch to find out how we can help.
