Tracking technical debt - An exploratory case study

The technical debt metaphor is increasingly being used to describe the effect of delaying certain software maintenance tasks on software projects. Practitioners understand intuitively how technical debt can turn into a serious problem if it is left unattended. However, it remains unknown how serious...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in2011 27th IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance (ICSM) pp. 528 - 531
Main Authors Yuepu Guo, Seaman, C., Gomes, R., Cavalcanti, A., Tonin, G., Da Silva, F. Q. B., Santos, A. L. M., Siebra, C.
Format Conference Proceeding
LanguageEnglish
Published IEEE 01.09.2011
Subjects
Decision making
Delay
Maintenance engineering
Protocols
Software maintenance
Switches
technical debt
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Summary:The technical debt metaphor is increasingly being used to describe the effect of delaying certain software maintenance tasks on software projects. Practitioners understand intuitively how technical debt can turn into a serious problem if it is left unattended. However, it remains unknown how serious the problem is and whether explicit measurement and management of technical debt is useful. In this paper, we explore the effect of technical debt by tracking a single delayed maintenance task in a real software project throughout its lifecycle and simulate how explicit technical debt management might have changed project outcomes. The results from this study demonstrate how and to what extent technical debt affects software projects. The study also sheds light on the research methodologies that can be used to investigate the technical debt management problem.
ISBN:9781457706639
1457706636
ISSN:1063-6773
2576-3148
DOI:10.1109/ICSM.2011.6080824