Analyzing the concept of technical debt in the context of agile software development: A systematic literature review

Behutiye, Woubshet; Rodríguez, Pilar; Oivo, Markku; Tosun, Ayşe

doi:10.1016/j.infsof.2016.10.004

Cited by 91 publications

(81 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…The figure shows that 61 studies lie in the upper right corner and have a research rigor value of ≥ 1.5 and an industrial relevance value of ≥ 2. Among these studies, 16 have the highest research rigor value (3) and the highest industrial relevance value (4). Studies with high research rigor and industrial relevance enable easy transfer of knowledge and offer opportunities for replication.…”

Section: Fig 2(a) Annual Distribution Of Primary Studies Based On Aumentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Evidence supports these claims; market prospects indicate that up to 26% of firms' IT budgets are dedicated to software quality assurance and testing, and they predict an increase to 33% in the next three years [1]. In addition, some studies have shown the impact of overlooking quality-related aspects on the costs of software development and maintenance [2][3][4]. For instance, Ramesh et al [3] reported that overlooking quality-related aspects in the early stages of development resulted in degradation of system quality and required redevelopment of the whole system.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Management of quality requirements in agile and rapid software development: A systematic mapping study

Behutiye

Karhapää

López³

et al. 2020

Information and Software Technology

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Context: Quality requirements (QRs) describe the desired quality of software, and they play an important role in the success of software projects. In agile software development (ASD), QRs are often ill-defined and not well addressed due to the focus on quickly delivering functionality. Rapid software development (RSD) approaches (e.g., continuous delivery and continuous deployment), which shorten delivery times, are more prone to neglect QRs. Despite the significance of QRs in both ASD and RSD, there is limited synthesized knowledge on their management in those approaches.Objective: This study aims to synthesize state-of-the-art knowledge about QR management in ASD and RSD, focusing on three aspects: bibliometric, strategies, and challenges. Research method: Using a systematic mapping study with a snowballing search strategy, we identified and structured the literature on QR management in ASD and RSD. Results: We found 156 primary studies: 106 are empirical studies, 16 are experience reports, and 34 are theoretical studies. Security and performance were the most commonly reported QR types. We identified various QR management strategies: 74 practices, 43 methods, 13 models, 12 frameworks, 11 advices, 10 tools, and 7 guidelines. Additionally, we identified 18 categories and 4 non-recurring challenges of managing QRs. The limited ability of ASD to handle QRs, time constraints due to short iteration cycles, limitations regarding the testing of QRs and neglect of QRs were the top categories of challenges. Conclusion: Management of QRs is significant in ASD and is becoming important in RSD. This study identified research gaps, such as the need for more tools and guidelines, lightweight QR management strategies that fit short iteration cycles, investigations of the link between QRs challenges and technical debt, and extension of empirical validation of existing strategies to a wider context. It also synthesizes QR management strategies and challenges, which may be useful for practitioners.

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Section: Fig 2(a) Annual Distribution Of Primary Studies Based On Aumentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Management of quality requirements in agile and rapid software development: A systematic mapping study

Behutiye

Karhapää

López³

et al. 2020

Information and Software Technology

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In another related work, Behutiye et al [21] analyse the concept of technical debt in Agile Software Development (ASD). A list of ten causes and five consequences of incurring technical debt in ASD was identified in the research.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Authors also classified a list of technical debt management strategies in ASD. The research indicates the need for more tools, models and guidelines that support management of technical debt in ASD [21] and the role of architecture in ASD.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Technical Debt Aware Estimations in Software Engineering: A Systematic Mapping Study

Madeyski¹

2020

EISEJ

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Context: The Technical Debt metaphor has grown in popularity. More software is being created and has to be maintained. Agile methodologies, in particular Scrum, are widely used by development teams around the world. Estimation is an often practised step in sprint planning. The subject matter of this paper is the impact technical debt has on estimations. Objective: The goal of this research is to identify estimation problems and their solutions due to previously introduced technical debt in software projects. Method: The Systematic mapping study (SMS) method was applied in the research. Papers were selected from the popular digital databases (IEEE, ACM, Scopus, etc.) using defined search criteria. Afterwards, a snowballing procedure was performed and the final publication set was filtered using inclusion/exclusion criteria. Results: 42 studies were selected and evaluated. Five categories of problems and seven proposed solutions to the problems have been extracted from the papers. Problems include items related to business perspective (delivery pressure or lack of technical debt understanding by business decision-makers) and technical perspective (difficulties in forecasting architectural technical debt impact or limits of source code analysis). Solutions were categorized in: more sophisticated decision-making tools for business managers, better tools for estimation support and technical debt management tools on an architectural-level, portfolio approach to technical debt, code audit and technical debt reduction routine conducted every sprint. Conclusion: The results of this mapping study can help taking the appropriate approach in technical debt mitigation in organizations. However, the outcome of the conducted research shows that the problem of measuring technical debt impact on estimations has not yet been solved. We propose several directions for further investigation. In particular, we would focus on more sophisticated decision-making tools.

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“…Technical debt indicates expedient decisions with long-term costs and interest [6], [7], [8]. It corresponds to concerns over the lack of long-term thinking [9], early considerations of long-living effects across the lifecycle [10], and the resulting sustainability debt of software systems [11].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intertemporal Choice: Decision Making and Time in Software Engineering

Becker

Walker

McCord

2017

2017 IEEE/ACM 10th International Workshop on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering (CHASE)

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Abstract-When making choices in software projects, engineers and other stakeholders engage in decision making that involves uncertain future outcomes. The concept of 'intertemporal choice' describes choices between outcomes at different times in the future. Short-sighted decisions with far-reaching effects are a long-standing cause of concern in the software profession.Common models to support decisions in software projects use concepts such as expected utility and discount factors to quantify future value and enable trade-off decisions. However, a growing body of behavioral research shows that these normative models do not adequately describe how people actually make choices.Our objective is to understand how developers and stakeholders actually take trade-off decisions during software projects that involve current and future benefits, and to identify the human and cooperative factors that influence them. This requires empirical research on decision making in SE with a focus on trade-offs across time. To support such research, this paper reports on a systematic literature review that aimed to identify whether the intersection of these concepts has been acknowledged and addressed. We discuss the assumptions about decision makers that underpin existing research and analyze how the role of time has been characterized in the study of decision making in SE.Based on this review, the paper begins to develop principles for a descriptive framework to characterize intertemporal choices in empirical and behavioral software engineering research.

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Analyzing the concept of technical debt in the context of agile software development: A systematic literature review

Cited by 91 publications

References 37 publications

Management of quality requirements in agile and rapid software development: A systematic mapping study

Management of quality requirements in agile and rapid software development: A systematic mapping study

Technical Debt Aware Estimations in Software Engineering: A Systematic Mapping Study

Intertemporal Choice: Decision Making and Time in Software Engineering

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