EDOS 2021 uke 43
Technical Debt (TD)! Adopting easy short-term solutions today could result in costly rework later. What about productivity? How to track TD? Please participate in an international survey on TD.
Participate in an international survey on Requirements Engineering Debt.
Productivity loss due to technical debt
WHAT : A Swedish case study with 43 developers from six companies investigated the consequences of technical debt in waste of working time.
IT IS INTERESTING that:
Software developers waste on average 23% of their time fixing TD issues, that is, a week of wasted effort every month
Even if the wasted time for individual developers varies over time, the overall loss of a team is consistent, which means, often, someone is 'taking one for the team.'
Most of the wasted time is spent on the activities additional testing, additional code analysis, and additional refactoring.
In a quarter of the cases, developers are forced to introduce more TD to solve issues related to already existing TD
Software developers are much more aware of the waste than managers, which affects tasks prioritization.
SO WHAT?
Technical debt generates a lot of waste in developers' productivity
Refactoring is still a viable solution to keep TD at bay on an ongoing basis
Both developers and managers understand the need to quantify wasted time, but there are challenges in adopting a strategy for managing technical debt
Tracking technical debt in practice
WHAT : A survey research with 15 Scandinavian companies that introduced technical debt management.
IT IS INTERESTING that:
Software companies in Scandinavia are familiar with TD and aware of its risks
Still, there are significant challenges for tracking technical debt: (1) the high cost of introducing TD management and (2) the lack of knowledge about what practices and tools to use.
Specific tools to implement TD tracking are scarce, so the companies adopted a combination of code commenting, project documentation, and project tracking software.
The TD tracking process demands time to implement and requires preliminary activities, such as allocating resources and setting up measurements.
A champion is needed: someone aware of the TD and willing to promote practices to track it. Also essential is creating an environment in which managers are involved in TD tracking.
SO WHAT?
Managing TD is about being timely: you need to be aware of the harmful effects of TD before it's too late, so you can take action to fix it.
You need someone skilled in leading the process, and you need to constantly communicate with managers about the benefits and challenges of TD management.
Invitation to Participate in an International Survey on Requirements Engineering Debt
Requirements Engineering Debt (ReD) is an emerging concept which specifically relates the debt metaphor to the handling of requirements, ranging from their inception to their specification and validation.
In this online survey, we aim at better understanding how the concept of Requirements Engineering Debt manifests itself in practice. With your participation as a software engineering professional, you will contribute to our research on the application of this concept to practical means.
You can reach our survey the following this link: https://ww2.unipark.de/uc/RE-Debt-Study/
The time required to participate is estimated to be 20-30 minutes; GDPR-related information can be found on the survey website.
Your support would be highly appreciated! Send an email to jefferson@simula.no if you want more information about this study.
Bonus
Codeahoy highlighted the consequences of working with too much TD: reduced work satisfaction and lower retention rates.
The root cause of the TD accumulation could lay in the software architecture. Read also about the interest of architectural technical debt.
Lessons from managing technical debt at Google suggest that a joint effort is required to find and fix TD issues.
A literature review identified strategies for managing debt; cost-benefit analysis is the strategy most often used.
Recent experiments show that the effort to fix technical debt could be smaller than estimated, even when using novice developers.
For Startups, TD can be quite beneficial to accrue because smaller and more dynamic teams are the best fit for keeping the debt under control.