| 1. |
- Avgeriou, Paris C, et al.
(författare)
-
An Overview and Comparison of Technical Debt Measurement Tools
- 2021
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Ingår i: IEEE Software. - 1937-4194 .- 0740-7459. ; 38:3, s. 61-71
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- There are numerous commercial tools and research prototypes that offer support for measuring technical debt. However, different tools adopt different terms, metrics, and ways to identify and measure technical debt. These tools offer diverse features, and their popularity / community support varies significantly. Therefore, (a) practitioners face difficulties when trying to select a tool matching their needs; and (b) the concept of technical debt and its role in software development is blurred. We attempt to clarify the situation by comparing the features and popularity of technical debt measurement tools, and analyzing the existing empirical evidence on their validity. Our findings can help practitioners to find the most suitable tool for their purposes, and researchers by highlighting the current tool shortcomings.
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| 2. |
- Besker, Terese, 1970, et al.
(författare)
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A systematic literature review and a unified model of ATD
- 2016
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Ingår i: Proceedings of the EUROMICRO Conference. - 1089-6503. - 9781509028191 ; , s. 189-197
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Fast software deliveries are hindered by high maintenance efforts due to internal quality issues and Technical Debt (TD) and specifically, Architectural Technical Debt (ATD) has received increased attention in the last few years. ATD has a significant influence and impact on system success and, left unchecked, it can cause expensive repercussions; it is, therefore, of maintenance and evolutionary importance to understand the basic underlying factors of ATD. Thus, with this as background, there is a need for a descriptive model to illustrate and explain the different ATD issues. The aim of this study is to synthesize and compile research efforts with the goal of creating new knowledge with a specific interest in the ATD field. The contribution of this paper is the presentation of a novel descriptive model, providing a comprehensive interpretation of the ATD phenomenon. This model categorizes the main characteristics of ATD and reveals their corresponding relations. The model is based on a systematic literature review (SLR) of currently recognized knowledge concerning ATD.
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| 3. |
- Besker, Terese, 1970
(författare)
-
An Empirical Investigation of the Harmfulness of Architectural Technical Debt
- 2018
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Background: In order to survive in today's fast-growing and ever fast-changing business environments, large-scale software companies need to deliver customer value continuously, both from a short- and long-term perspective. However, the consequences of potential long-term and far-reaching negative effects of shortcuts and quick fixes made during the software development lifecycle, described as Technical Debt (TD), can impede the software development process.Objective: The overall goal of this Licentiate thesis is to empirically study and understand in what way and to what extent, TD in general and architectural TD specifically, influence today’s software development work and, specifically, with the intention of providing more quantitative insights into the field.Method: To achieve the objectives, a combination of both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies are used, including interviews, surveys, a systematic literature review, a longitudinal study, correlation analysis, and statistical tests. In five of the seven included studies, we use a combination of multiple research methods to achieve high validity.Results: We present results showing that software suffering from TD will cause various different negative effects on both the software and on the developing process. These negative effects can be illustrated from a technical, a financial and from a developer’s working situational perspective.Conclusion: This thesis contributes to the understanding and quantification of in what way and to what extent TD is harmful to software development organizations. The results show that software practitioners estimate that they waste 36% of their working time due to experiencing TD and that the TD is causing them to perform additional time-consuming work activities. This study also shows that, compared to all types of TD, architectural TD has the greatest negative impact on the daily software development work.
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| 4. |
- Besker, Terese, 1970, et al.
(författare)
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An investigation of Technical Debt in Automatic Production Systems
- 2017
-
Ingår i: ACM International Conference Proceeding Series. - New York, NY, USA : ACM. - 9781450352642 ; Part F129907
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Technical Debt is a recent concept, borrowed from the financial domain. It has been recently used in software development to describe technical sub-optimal solutions that have short-term benefits but long-term extra-costs. However, no body of literature investigates how Automatic Production Systems companies deal with Technical Debt. We investigated how Technical Debt is known, how much it hurts and how is managed in an automatic production systems company. Results from one in-depth investigation show that the automatic production systems company spend quite a lot of resources because of Technical Debt, both in the extra-costs (interest) and in its management. The company presents moderate awareness of what Technical Debt is and how much is present in its systems. However, the tracking level is quite low. We, therefore, claim that Technical Debt needs more research in this domain, as it is a source of substantial extra-costs and the current practices to manage it are not suitable.
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| 5. |
- Besker, Terese, 1970, et al.
(författare)
-
Carrot and Stick approaches when managing Technical Debt
- 2020
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Ingår i: Proceedings - 2020 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Technical Debt, TechDebt 2020. - New York, NY, USA : ACM. ; , s. 21-30
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- When developing software, it is vitally important to keep the level of technical debt down since it is well established from several studies that technical debt can, e.g., lower the development productivity, decrease the developers’ morale, and compromise the overall quality of the software. However, even if researchers and practitioners working in today's software development industry are quite familiar with the concept of technical debt and its related negative consequences, there has been no empirical research focusing specifically on how software managers actively communicate and manage the need to keep the level of technical debt as low as possible. This paper aims to explore how software companies encourage and reward practitioners for actively keeping the level of technical debt down and also whether the companies use any forcing or penalizing initiatives when managing technical debt. This paper reports the results of both an online web-survey provided quantitative data from 258 participants and follow-up interviews with 32 industrial software practitioners. The findings show that having a TD management strategy can significantly impact the amount of TD in the software. When surveying how commonly used different TD management strategies are, we found that only the encouraging strategy is, to some extent, adopted in today's’ software industry. This study also provides a model describing the four assessed strategies by presenting its strategies and tactics, together with recommendations on how they could be operationalized in today’s software companies.
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| 6. |
- Besker, Terese, 1970, et al.
(författare)
-
Embracing Technical Debt, from a Startup Company Perspective
- 2018
-
Ingår i: PROCEEDINGS 2018 IEEE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON SOFTWARE MAINTENANCE AND EVOLUTION (ICSME). - 1063-6773. - 9781538678701 - 9781538678701 ; , s. 415-425
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Software startups are typically under extreme pressure to get to market quickly with limited resources and high uncertainty. This pressure and uncertainty is likely to cause startups to accumulate technical debt as they make decisions that are more focused on the short-term than the long-term health of the codebase. However, most research on technical debt has been focused on more mature software teams, who may have less pressure and, therefore, reason about technical debt very differently than software startups. In this study, we seek to understand the organizational factors that lead to and the benefits and challenges associated with the intentional accumulation of technical debt in software startups. We interviewed 16 professionals involved in seven different software startups. We find that the startup phase, the experience of the developers, software knowledge of the founders, and level of employee growth are some of the organizational factors that influence the intentional accumulation of technical debt. In addition, we find the software startups are typically driven to achieve a “good enough level,” and this guides the amount of technical debt that they intentionally accumulate to balance the benefits of speed to market and reduced resources with the challenges of later addressing technical debt.
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| 7. |
- Besker, Terese, 1970, et al.
(författare)
-
How Regulations of Safety-Critical Software Affect Technical Debt
- 2019
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Ingår i: Proceedings - 45th Euromicro Conference on Software Engineering and Advanced Applications, SEAA 2019. ; , s. 74-81
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- In recent years in the software industry, the use of safety-critical software is increasing at a rapid rate. However, little is known about the relationship between safety-critical regulations and the management of technical debt. The research is based on interviews with 19 practitioners working in different safety-critical domains implementing software according to different safety regulation standards. The results are three-fold. First, the result shows that performing technical debt refactoring tasks in safety-critical software requires several additional activities and costs, compared to non-safety-critical software. This study has also identified several negative effects due to the impact of these regulatory requirements. Second, the results show that the safety-critical regulations strengthen the implementation of both source code and architecture and thereby initially limit the introduction of technical debt. However, at the same time, the regulations also force the software companies to perform later suboptimal work-around solutions that are counterproductive in achieving a high-quality software since the regulations constrain the possibility of performing optimal TD refactoring activities. Third, the result shows that technical debt refactoring decisions are heavily weighed on the costs associated with the application’s recertification process and that these decisions seldom include the benefits of the refactoring activities in a structured way.
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| 8. |
- Besker, Terese, 1970, et al.
(författare)
-
Impact of Architectural Technical Debt on Daily Software Development Work - A Survey of Software Practitioners
- 2017
-
Ingår i: Proceedings - 43rd Euromicro Conference on Software Engineering and Advanced Applications, SEAA 2017. - 9781538621400 ; , s. 278-287
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- — The negative consequences of Technical Debt is an area of increasing interest, and more specifically the Architectural aspects of it have received increased attention in the last few years. Besides the negative effects of Architectural Technical Debt on the overall software product quality in terms of hindering evolution and causing high maintenance costs, Architectural Technical Debt also has a significant negative impact on software practitioners’ daily work. Although a great deal of theoretical work on Architectural Technical Debt has been undertaken, there is a lack of empirical studies that examine the negative effects of Architectural Technical Debt during the software development lifecycle. The aim of this study is to investigate how practitioners perceive and estimate the impact of Architectural Technical Debt during the software development process. This paper reports the results of an online web survey providing quantitative data from 258 participants. The contribution of this paper is threefold: First, it shows that practitioners experience that the Architectural type of Technical Debt has the highest negative impact on daily software development work. Secondly, we provide evidence that does not support the commonly held belief that Architectural Technical Debt increases with the age of the software. Thirdly, we show that despite different responsibilities and working tasks of software professionals, Architectural Technical Debt negatively affects all roles without any significant difference between the roles.
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| 9. |
- Besker, Terese, 1970, et al.
(författare)
-
Managing architectural technical debt: A unified model and systematic literature review
- 2018
-
Ingår i: Journal of Systems and Software. - : Elsevier BV. - 0164-1212. ; 135, s. 1-16
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Large Software Companies need to support the continuous and fast delivery of customer value in both the short and long term. However, this can be impeded if the evolution and maintenance of existing systems is hampered by what has been recently termed Technical Debt (TD). Specifically, Architectural TD has received increased attention in the last few years due to its significant impact on system success and, left unchecked, it can cause expensive repercussions. It is therefore important to understand the underlying factors of architectural TD. With this as background, there is a need for a descriptive model to illustrate and explain different architectural TD issues. The aim of this study is to synthesize and compile research efforts with the goal of creating new knowledge with a specific interest in the architectural TD field. The contribution of this paper is the presentation of a novel descriptive model, providing a comprehensive interpretation of the architectural TD phenomenon. This model categorizes the main characteristics of architectural TD and reveals their relations. The results show that, by using this model, different stakeholders could increase the system's success rate, and lower the rate of negative consequences, by raising awareness about architectural TD.
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| 10. |
- Besker, Terese, 1970, et al.
(författare)
-
Software Developer Productivity Loss Due to Technical Debt - A replication and extension study examining developers’ development work
- 2019
-
Ingår i: Journal of Systems and Software. - : Elsevier BV. - 0164-1212. ; 156, s. 41-61
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Software companies need to deliver customer value continuously, both from a short- and long-term perspective. However, software development can be impeded by technical debt (TD). Although significant theoretical work has been undertaken to describe the negative effects of TD, little empirical evidence exists on how much wasted time and additional activities TD causes. The study aims to explore the consequences of TD in terms of wastage of development time. This study investigates on which activities this wasted time is spent and whether different TD types impact the wasted time differently. This study reports the results of a longitudinal study surveying 43 developers and including16 interviews followed by validation by an additional study using a different and independent dataset and focused on replicating the findings addressing the findings. The analysis of the reported wasted time revealed that developers waste, on average, 23% of their time due to TD and that developers are frequently forced to introduce new TD. The most common activity on which additional time is spent is performing additional testing. The study provides evidence that TD hinders developers by causing an excessive waste of working time, where the wasted time negatively affects productivity.
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| 11. |
- Besker, Terese, 1970
(författare)
-
Technical Debt: An empirical investigation of its harmfulness and on management strategies in industry
- 2020
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Background: In order to survive in today's fast-growing and ever fast-changing business environment, software companies need to continuously deliver customer value, both from a short- and long-term perspective. However, the consequences of potential long-term and far-reaching negative effects of shortcuts and quick fixes made during the software development lifecycle, described as Technical Debt (TD), can impede the software development process. Objective: The overarching goal of this Ph.D. thesis is twofold. The first goal is to empirically study and understand in what way and to what extent, TD influences today’s software development work, specifically with the intention to provide more quantitative insight into the field. Second, to understand which different initiatives can reduce the negative effects of TD and also which factors are important to consider when implementing such initiatives. Method: To achieve the objectives, a combination of both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies are used, including interviews, surveys, a systematic literature review, a longitudinal study, analysis of documents, correlation analysis, and statistical tests. In seven of the eleven studies included in this Ph.D. thesis, a combination of multiple research methods are used to achieve high validity. Results: We present results showing that software suffering from TD will cause various negative effects on both the software and the developing process. These negative effects are illustrated from a technical, financial, and a developer’s working situational perspective. These studies also identify several initiatives that can be undertaken in order to reduce the negative effects of TD. Conclusion: The results show that software developers report that they waste 23% of their working time due to experiencing TD and that TD required them to perform additional time-consuming work activities. This study also shows that, compared to all types of TD, architectural TD has the greatest negative impact on daily software development work and that TD has negative effects on several different software quality attributes. Further, the results show that TD reduces developer morale. Moreover, the findings show that intentionally introducing TD in startup companies can allow the startups to cut development time, enabling faster feedback and increased revenue, preserve resources, and decrease risk and thereby contribute to beneficial effects. This study also identifies several initiatives that can be undertaken in order to reduce the negative effects of TD, such as the introduction of a tracking process where the TD items are introduced in an official backlog. The finding also indicates that there is an unfulfilled potential regarding how managers can influence the manner in which software practitioners address TD.
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| 12. |
- Besker, Terese, 1970, et al.
(författare)
-
Technical Debt Cripples Software Developer Productivity
- 2018
-
Ingår i: Proceedings - International Conference on Software Engineering. - New York, NY, USA : ACM. - 0270-5257. ; , s. 105-114
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Software companies need to continuously deliver customer value, both from a short- and long-term perspective. However, software development can be impeded by what has been described as Technical Debt (TD). The aim of this study is to explore the negative consequences of TD in terms of wasted software development time. This study also investigates on which additional activities this wasted time is spent and whether different types of TD impact the wasted time differently. This study also sets out to examine the benefits of tracking and communicating the amount of wasted time, both from a developer’s and manager’s perspective. This paper reports the results of a longitudinal study, surveying 43 software developers, together with follow-up interviews with 16 industrial software practitioners. The analysis of the reported wasted time revealed that developers waste, on average, 23% of their development time due to TD and that they are frequently forced to introduce new TD due to already existing TD. The most common activity on which additional time is spent is performing additional testing.
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| 13. |
- Besker, Terese, 1970, et al.
(författare)
-
Technical Debt Triage in Backlog Management
- 2019
-
Ingår i: Proceedings - 2019 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Technical Debt, TechDebt 2019. ; , s. 13-22
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Remediation of technical debt through regular refactoring initiatives is considered vital for the software system's long and healthy life. However, since today’s software companies face increasing pressure to deliver customer value continuously, the balance between spending developer time, effort, and resources on implementing new features or spending it on refactoring of technical debt becomes vital. The goal of this study is to explore how the prioritization of technical debt is carried out by practitioners within today’s software industry. This study also investigates what factors influence the prioritization process and its related challenges. This paper reports the results of surveying 17 software practitioners, together with follow-up interviews with them. Our results show that there is no uniform way of prioritizing technical debt and that it is commonly done reactively without applying any explicit strategies. Often, technical debt issues are managed and prioritized in a shadow backlog, separate from the official sprint backlog. This study was also able to identify several different challenges related to prioritizing technical debt, such as the lack of quantitative information about the technical debt items and that the refactoring of technical debt issues competes with the implementation of customer requirements.
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| 14. |
- Besker, Terese, 1970, et al.
(författare)
-
The Enterprise Architect profession: An empirical study
- 2015
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Ingår i: 9th European Conference on IS Management and Evaluation – ECIME 2015. - 2048-8912. - 9781910810569 ; :38, s. 29-36
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The field of Enterprise Architecture (EA) is rapidly evolving why there is a need for increased professionalization of the discipline. Therefore, understanding the profession of the Enterprise Architects in enterprise transformation and development becomes important. However, there are very few empirically based studies which have reflected these professionals within their work domain of an every-day business. The purpose of this paper is to increase our understanding of how the Enterprise Architect’s practice their profession and in addition, to study how these professionals describe their occupation. Five different topics are of particular interest to portraying the occupation of the Enterprise Architect's profession; the role, competence, power, style of acting and main focus. The research is a descriptive study based on interviews with Enterprise Architects in ten large Swedish organizations. In conclusion, the architect is considered as a proud individualist with an entrepreneurial vein who endeavor consideration, reflection, and the guidance capability.
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| 15. |
- Besker, Terese, 1970, et al.
(författare)
-
The Influence of Technical Debt on Software Developer Morale
- 2020
-
Ingår i: Journal of Systems and Software. - : Elsevier BV. - 0164-1212. ; 167
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Context: Previous research in the Technical Debt (TD) field has mainly focused on the technical and economic aspects, while its human aspect has received minimal attention. Objective: This paper aims to understand how software developers’ morale is influenced by TD and how their morale is influenced by TD management activities. Furthermore, this study correlates the morale with the amount of wastage of time due to TD. Method: Firstly, we conducted 15 interviews with professionals, and, secondly, these data were complemented with a survey. Thirdly, we collected 473 data points from 43 developers reporting their amount of wasted time. The collected data were analyzed using both quantitative and qualitative techniques, including thematic and statistical analysis. Results: Our results show that the occurrence of TD is associated with a lack of progress and waste of time. This might have a negative influence on developers’ morale. Further, management of TD seems to have a positive influence on developers’ morale. Conclusions: The results highlight the effects TD has on practitioners’ software work. This study presents results indicating that software suffering from TD reduces developers’ morale and thereby also their productivity. However, our results also indicate that TD management increases developers’ morale and developer productivity.
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| 16. |
- Besker, Terese, 1970, et al.
(författare)
-
The Pricey Bill of Technical Debt - When and by whom will it be paid?
- 2017
-
Ingår i: IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance and Evolution (ICSME). - 9781538609927 ; , s. 13-23
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- — Software companies need to support continuous and fast delivery of customer value both in short and a long-term perspective. However, this can be hindered by evolution limitations and high maintenance efforts due to internal software quality issues by what is described as Technical Debt. Although significant theoretical work has been undertaken to describe the negative effects of Technical Debt, these studies tend to have a weak empirical basis and often lack quantitative data. The aim of this study is to estimate wasted time, caused by the Technical Debt interest during the software life-cycle. This study also investigates how practitioners perceive and estimate the impact of the negative consequences due to Technical Debt during the software development process. This paper reports the results of both an online web-survey provided quantitative data from 258 participants and follow-up interviews with 32 industrial software practitioners. The importance and originality of this study contributes and provides novel insights into the research on Technical Debt by quantifying the perceived interest and the negative effects it has on the software development life-cycle. The findings show that on average, 36 % of all development time is estimated to be wasted due to Technical Debt; Complex Architectural Design and Requirement Technical Debt generates most negative effect; and that most time is wasted on understanding and/or measuring the Technical Debt. Moreover, the analysis of the professional roles and the age of the software system in the survey revealed that different roles are affected differently and that the consequences of Technical Debt are also influenced by the age of the software system.
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| 17. |
- Besker, Terese, 1970, et al.
(författare)
-
The use of incentives to promote technical debt management
- 2022
-
Ingår i: Information and Software Technology. - : Elsevier BV. - 0950-5849 .- 1873-6025. ; 142
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Context: When developing software, it is vitally important to keep the level of technical debt down since, based on several studies, it has been well established that technical debt can lower the development productivity, decrease the developers' morale and compromise the overall quality of the software, among others. However, even if researchers and practitioners working in today's software development industry are quite familiar with the concept of technical debt and its related negative consequences, there has been no empirical research focusing specifically on how software managers actively communicate and manage the need to keep the level of technical debt as low as possible. Objective: This study aims to understand how software companies give incentives to manage technical debt. This is carried out by exploring how companies encourage and reward practitioners for actively keeping the level of technical debt down add whether the companies use any forcing or penalising initiatives when managing technical debt. Method: As a first step, this paper reports the results of both an online survey providing quantitative data from 258 participants and interviews with 32 software practitioners. As a second step, this study sets out to specifically provide a detailed assessment of additional and in-depth analysis of technical debt management strategies based on an encouraging mindset and attitude from both managers and technical roles to understand how, when and by whom such strategies are adopted in practice. Results: Our findings show that having a technical debt management strategy (specially based on encouragement) can significantly impact the amount of technical debt related to the software. Conclusion: The result indicates that there is considerable unfulfilled potential to influence how software practitioners can further limit and reduce technical debt by adopting a strategy based explicitly on an encouraging mindset from managers where they also specifically dedicate time and resources for technical debt remediation activities.
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| 18. |
- Besker, Terese, 1970, et al.
(författare)
-
Time to Pay Up - Technical Debt from a Software Quality Perspective
- 2017
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Ingår i: CibSE. - 9789873806988 ; , s. 235-248
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Software companies need to produce high-quality software and support continuous and fast delivery of customer value both in the short and long term. However, this can be hindered by compromised software quality attributes that have an important influence on the overall software development lifecycle. The aim of this study is threefold: to understand which quality issues have the most negative impact on the software development lifecycle process, to deter-mine the association of these quality issues in relation to the age of the software, and relate each of these quality issues to the impact of different Technical Debt types. This paper reports the results of six initial group interviews with in total 43 practitioners, an online web-survey provided quantitative data from 258 participants and seven follow-up group interviews with in total 32 industrial software practitioners. First, this study shows that practitioners identified maintenance difficulties, a limited ability to add new features, restricted reusability, and poor reliability, and performance degradation issues as the quality issues having the most negative effect on the software development lifecycle. Secondly, we found no evidence for the generally held view that the Technical Debt increases with age of the software. Thirdly, we show that Technical Debt affects not only productivity but also several other quality attributes of the system.
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| 19. |
- Cico, Orges, et al.
(författare)
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Toward a Technical Debt Relationship with the Pivoting of Growth Phase Startups
- 2021
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Ingår i: Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics). - Cham : Springer International Publishing. - 1611-3349 .- 0302-9743. ; 13126 LNCS, s. 265-280
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Context: Pivot has been a common strategical tactic of startups by shifting course of actions to adapt to environmental changes to the companies. Among many factors influencing the decisions of pivot or preserve, technical characteristics of the product and its evolution are possible triggering factors. We have learned that technical debt is an inherent phenomenon in startups that hinders later growth. However, we do not yet know how technical debt might lead to pivoting in startups and what TD processes we observe in different pivoting scenarios. Aim: Our goal is to evaluate how technical debt influences pivoting in growth-phase startups. Methodology: We conducted an empirical study on 11 software startups in Norway and Brazil and analyzed qualitative data using thematic analysis. Results: We identified three ways that technical debt influences pivoting: (1) direct, (2) indirect, and (3) no-influence. Managing and avoiding technical debt significantly reduces the likelihood of technology pivoting and restrains indirect effects on other pivoting types. Contribution: Our study will enable practitioners to address the influence of technical debt on pivoting in growth-phase software startups. Future researchers can benefit from our findings by conducting exploratory studies and providing educated recommendations.
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| 20. |
- Ghanbari, Hadi, et al.
(författare)
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Looking for Peace of Mind? Manage your (Technical) Debt - An Exploratory Field Study
- 2017
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Ingår i: International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement. - 1949-3789 .- 1949-3770.
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: In the last two decades Technical Debt (TD) has received a considerable amount of attention from software engineering research and practice. Recently, a small group of studies suggests that, in addition to its technical and economic consequences, TD can affect developers’ psychological states and morale. However, until now there has been a lack of empirical research clarifying such influences. Aims: In this study, we aim at taking the first step in filling this gap by investigating the potential impacts of TD and its management on developers’ morale. Method: Drawing from previous literature on morale, we decided to explore the influence of TD and its management on three dimensions of morale called affective, future/goal, and interpersonal antecedents. In so doing, we conducted an exploratory field study and collected data from software professionals active in different industrial domains through eight qualitative interviews and an online survey (n=33). Results: Our results indicate that TD mainly has a negative influence on future/goal and affective antecedents of morale. This is mainly because the occurrence of TD hinders developers from performing their tasks and achieving their goals. TD management, on the other hand, has a positive influence on all the three dimensions of morale since it is associated with positive feelings and interpersonal feedback as well as a sense of progress. Conclusions: According to the results of this empirical study, the occurrence of TD reduces developers’ morale, while its management increases developers’ morale.
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| 21. |
- Lenarduzzi, Valentina, et al.
(författare)
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A systematic literature review on Technical Debt prioritization: Strategies, processes, factors, and tools
- 2021
-
Ingår i: Journal of Systems and Software. - : Elsevier BV. - 0164-1212. ; 171
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background Software companies need to manage and refactor Technical Debt issues. Therefore, it is necessary to understand if and when refactoring of Technical Debt should be prioritized with respect to developing features or fixing bugs. Objective The goal of this study is to investigate the existing body of knowledge in software engineering to understand what Technical Debt prioritization approaches have been proposed in research and industry. Method We conducted a Systematic Literature Review of 557 unique papers published until 2020, following a consolidated methodology applied in software engineering. We included 44 primary studies. Results Different approaches have been proposed for Technical Debt prioritization, all having different goals and proposing optimization regarding different criteria. The proposed measures capture only a small part of the plethora of factors used to prioritize Technical Debt qualitatively in practice. We present an impact map of such factors. However, there is a lack of empirical and validated set of tools. Conclusion We observed that Technical Debt prioritization research is preliminary and there is no consensus on what the important factors are and how to measure them. Consequently, we cannot consider current research conclusive. In this paper, we therefore outline different directions for necessary future investigations.
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| 22. |
- Lenarduzzi, Valentina, et al.
(författare)
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Technical Debt Prioritization: State of the Art. A Systematic Literature Review
- 2020
-
Ingår i: Journal of Systems and Software. - : Elsevier BV. - 0164-1212. ; 171
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background. Software companies need to manage and refactor Technical Debt issues. Therefore, it is necessary to understand if and when refactoring of Technical Debt should be prioritized with respect to developing features or fixing bugs. Objective. The goal of this study is to investigate the existing body of knowledge in software engineering to understand what Technical Debt prioritization approaches have been proposed in research and industry. Method. We conducted a Systematic Literature Review of 557 unique papers published until 2019, following a consolidated methodology applied in software engineering. We included 44 primary studies. Results. Different approaches have been proposed for Technical Debt prioritization, all having different goals and proposing optimization regarding different criteria. The proposed measures capture only a small part of the plethora of factors used to prioritize Technical Debt qualitatively in practice. We present an impact map of such factors. However, there is a lack of empirical and validated set of tools. Conclusion. We observed that Technical Debt prioritization research is preliminary and there is no consensus on what the important factors are and how to measure them. Consequently, we cannot consider current research conclusive. In this paper, we therefore outline different directions for necessary future investigations.
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| 23. |
- Levén, William, et al.
(författare)
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The broken windows theory applies to technical debt
- 2024
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Ingår i: Empirical Software Engineering. - : Springer. - 1573-7616 .- 1382-3256. ; 29:4
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Context: The term technical debt (TD) describes the aggregation of sub-optimal solutions that serve to impede the evolution and maintenance of a system. Some claim that the broken windows theory (BWT), a concept borrowed from criminology, also applies to software development projects. The theory states that the presence of indications of previous crime (such as a broken window) will increase the likelihood of further criminal activity; TD could be considered the broken windows of software systems. Objective: To empirically investigate the causal relationship between the TD density of a system and the propensity of developers to introduce new TD during the extension of that system. Method: The study used a mixed-methods research strategy consisting of a controlled experiment with an accompanying survey and follow-up interviews. The experiment had a total of 29 developers of varying experience levels completing system extension tasks in already existing systems with high or low TD density. Results: The analysis revealed significant effects of TD level on the subjects’ tendency to re-implement (rather than reuse) functionality, choose non-descriptive variable names, and introduce other code smells identified by the software tool SonarQube, all with at least 95% credible intervals. Coclusions: Three separate significant results along with a validating qualitative result combine to form substantial evidence of the BWT’s existence in software engineering contexts. This study finds that existing TD can have a major impact on developers propensity to introduce new TD of various types during development.
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| 24. |
- Martini, Antonio, 1982, et al.
(författare)
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Process Debt: a First Exploration
- 2020
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Ingår i: Proceedings - Asia-Pacific Software Engineering Conference, APSEC. - 1530-1362. ; 2020-December, s. 316-325
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Process Debt, like Technical Debt, can be the source of short-term benefits but often is harmful in the long term for a software organization. However, we do not know much about Process Debt from current literature. We conducted an exploratory study of Process Debt in four international organizations by interviewing 16 practitioners. The findings show that Process Debt can be a harmful phenomenon that needs attention and new practices, as it is different from Technical Debt. We provide an initial framework, composed by a definition and a conceptual model for Process Debt, showing types, causes, consequences, and debt accumulation patterns.
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| 25. |
- Martini, Antonio, 1982, et al.
(författare)
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Technical Debt tracking: Current state of practice: A survey and multiple case study in 15 large organizations
- 2018
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Ingår i: Science of Computer Programming. - : Elsevier BV. - 0167-6423. ; 163, s. 42-61
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Large software companies need to support continuous and fast delivery of customer value both in the short and long term. However, this can be hindered if both the evolution and maintenance of existing systems are hampered by Technical Debt. Although a lot of theoretical work on Technical Debt has been produced recently, its practical management lacks empirical studies. In this paper, we investigate the state of practice in several companies to understand what the cost of managing TD is, what tools are used to track TD, and how a tracking process is introduced in practice. We combined two phases: a survey involving 226 respondents from 15 organizations and an in-depth multiple case study in three organizations including 13 interviews and 79 Technical Debt issues. We selected the organizations where Technical Debt was better tracked in order to distill best practices. We found that the development time dedicated to managing Technical Debt is substantial (an average of 25% of the overall development), but mostly not systematic: only a few participants (26%) use a tool, and only 7.2% methodically track Technical Debt. We found that the most used and effective tools are currently backlogs and static analyzers. By studying the approaches in the companies participating in the case study, we report how companies start tracking Technical Debt and what the initial benefits and challenges are. Finally, we propose a Strategic Adoption Model for the introduction of tracking Technical Debt in software organizations.
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| 26. |
- Martini, Antonio, et al.
(författare)
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Technical debt tracking: Current state of practice: A survey and multiple case study in 15 large organizations
- 2022
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Ingår i: Accelerating Digital Transformation: 10 Years of Software Center. - 9783031108730 ; , s. 87-118
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Large software companies need to support continuous and fast delivery of customer value both in the short and long term. However, this can be hindered if both the evolution and maintenance of existing systems are hampered by Technical Debt. Although a lot of theoretical work on Technical Debt has been produced recently, its practical management lacks empirical studies. In this paper, we investigate the state of practice in several companies to understand what the cost of managing TD is, what tools are used to track TD, and how a tracking process is introduced in practice. We combined two phases: a survey involving 226 respondents from 15 organizations and an in-depth multiple case study in three organizations including 13 interviews and 79 Technical Debt issues. We selected the organizations where Technical Debt was better tracked in order to distill best practices. We found that the development time dedicated to managing Technical Debt is substantial (an average of 25% of the overall development), but mostly not systematic: only a few participants (26%) use a tool, and only 7.2% methodically track Technical Debt. We found that the most used and effective tools are currently backlogs and static analyzers. By studying the approaches in the companies participating in the case study, we report how companies start tracking Technical Debt and what the initial benefits and challenges are. Finally, we propose a Strategic Adoption Model for the introduction of tracking Technical Debt in software organizations.
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| 27. |
- Martini, Antonio, 1982, et al.
(författare)
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The Introduction of Technical Debt Tracking in Large Companies - A Survey and Multiple Case-Study
- 2016
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Ingår i: 2016 23rd Asia-Pacific Software Engineering Conference (APSEC).
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Large software companies need to support continuous and fast delivery of customer value both in the short and long term. However, this can be hindered if both the evolution and maintenance of existing systems are hampered by what has been recently called Technical Debt. Although a lot of theoretical work on Technical Debt has been recently produced, its practical management lacks empirical studies. In this paper we investigate the state of practice in several companies in order to understand how they start tracking Technical Debt. We combined different methodologies: we conducted a survey, involving 226 respondents from 15 organizations and a more in-depth multiple case-study in three organizations, where Technical Debt was tracked: we involved 13 interviews and 79 Technical Debt issues analysis. We found that the development time dedicated to manage Technical Debt is substantial (around 25%) but not systematic: only a few participants currently track Technical Debt. By studying the early approaches in the companies participating in the case-study, we understood how companies start tracking Technical Debt and what are the initial benefits and challenges. Finally, we propose a Strategic Adoption Model based to define and adopt a dedicated process for tracking Technical Debt.
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| 28. |
- Martini, Antonio, 1982, et al.
(författare)
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The introduction of technical debt tracking in large companies. A Survey and Multiple Case-Study
- 2016
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Ingår i: Proceedings - Asia-Pacific Software Engineering Conference, APSEC. - 1530-1362. ; , s. 161-168
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Large software companies need to support continuous and fast delivery of customer value both in the short and long term. However, this can be hindered if both evolution and maintenance of existing systems are hampered by Technical Debt. Although a lot of theoretical work on Technical Debt has been recently produced, its practical management lacks empirical studies. In this paper we investigate the state of practice in several companies in order to understand how they start tracking Technical Debt. We combined different methodologies: we conducted a survey, involving 226 respondents from 15 organizations and a more in-depth multiple case-study in three organizations, where Technical Debt was tracked: we involved 13 interviews and 79 Technical Debt issues analysis. We found that the development time dedicated to manage Technical Debt is substantial (around 25% of the overall development) but not systematic: only a few participants methodically track Technical Debt. By studying the approaches in the companies participating in the case-study, we understood how companies start tracking Technical Debt and what are the initial benefits and challenges. Finally, we propose a Strategic Adoption Model based to define and adopt a dedicated process for tracking Technical Debt.
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| 29. |
- Olsson, Jesper, et al.
(författare)
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Measuring affective states from technical debt: A psychoempirical software engineering experiment
- 2021
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Ingår i: Empirical Software Engineering. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1573-7616 .- 1382-3256. ; 26:5
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Context: Software engineering is a human activity. Despite this, human aspects are under-represented in technical debt research, perhaps because they are challenging to evaluate. Objective: This study’s objective was to investigate the relationship between technical debt and affective states (feelings, emotions, and moods) from software practitioners. Method: Forty participants (N = 40) from twelve companies took part in a mixed-methods approach, consisting of a repeated-measures (r = 5) experiment (n = 200), a survey, and semi-structured interviews. From the qualitative data, it is clear that technical debt activates a substantial portion of the emotional spectrum and is psychologically taxing. Further, the practitioners’ reactions to technical debt appear to fall in different levels of maturity. Results: The statistical analysis shows that different design smells (strong indicators of technical debt) negatively or positively impact affective states. Conclusions: We argue that human aspects in technical debt are important factors to consider, as they may result in, e.g., procrastination, apprehension, and burnout.
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