The sheer volume and variety of requests the application maintenance team receives from various business and technical sources inevitably create unmanageable backlogs, which leads to inefficiencies that take time away from other activities like strategic planning or issue resolution.
Maintenance teams are often expected to work without schedule disruptions, but these expectations don't often align with reality. The increasing complexity of technology has created a false sense of urgency for stakeholders and unreasonable expectations for maintenance schedules.
One way to improve maintenance's focus and attention are by doing less but more valuable work. Teams need to be realistic about what they can be committed to and be prepared to justify why specific requests have been pushed down the backlog (e.g., lack of business value or high risk).
Maintenance is not an exception to development activities. It follows the same intake, prioritization, and quality standards as other activities.