Hearing the Voice of Software Practitioners on Technical Debt Monitoring: Understanding Monitoring Practices and the Practices' Avoidance Reasons

Sávio Freire; Nicolli Rios; Boris Pérez; Camilo Castellanos; Darío Correal; Robert Ramač; Vladimir Mandić; Nebojša Taušan; Gustavo López; Alexia Pacheco; Manoel Mendonça; Davide Falessi; Clemente Izurieta; Carolyn Seaman; Rodrigo Spínola

doi:10.5753/jserd.2024.4011

Authors

Sávio Freire Federal Institute of Ceará and Federal University of Bahia https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3989-9442
Nicolli Rios Federal University of Rio de Janeiro https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6962-2989
Boris Pérez University of Los Andes and Francisco de Paula Santander University https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9249-1756
Camilo Castellanos University of Los Andes https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3301-8720
Darío Correal University of Los Andes https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9502-4504
Robert Ramač University of Novi Sad https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7555-138X
Vladimir Mandić University of Novi Sad https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6996-2222
Nebojša Taušan University of Novi Sad https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9663-7951
Gustavo López University of Costa Rica https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0510-8857
Alexia Pacheco University of Costa Rica https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6323-4064
Manoel Mendonça Federal University of Bahia https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0874-7665
Davide Falessi University of Rome Tor Vergata https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6340-0058
Clemente Izurieta Montana State University and Idaho National Laboratories https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1002-3906
Carolyn Seaman University of Maryland Baltimore County https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6588-9830
Rodrigo Spínola Virginia Commonwealth University https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0272-9578

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5753/jserd.2024.4011

Keywords:

Technical debt, Technical debt monitoring, Technical debt management, Survey

Abstract

Context. Technical debt (TD) monitoring allows software professionals to track the evolution of debt incurred in their projects. The technical literature has listed several practices used in the software industry to monitor indebtedness. However, there is limited evidence on the use and on the reasons to avoid using these practices. Aims. This work aims to investigate, from the point of view of software practitioners, the practices used for monitoring TD items, and the practice avoidance reasons (PARs) curbing the monitoring of TD items. Method. We analyze quantitatively and qualitatively a set of 653 answers collected with a family of industrial surveys distributed in six countries. Results. Practitioners are prone to monitor TD items, revealing 46 practices for monitoring the debt and 35 PARs for explaining TD non-monitoring. Both practices and PARs are strongly associated with planning and management issues. The study also shows the relationship found among practices, PARs and types of debt and presents a conceptual map that relates practices and PARs with their categories. Conclusion. The results of this study add to a practitioners’ capability to monitor TD items by revealing the monitoring practices, PARs and their relationship with different TD types.

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Author Biography

Sávio Freire, Federal Institute of Ceará and Federal University of Bahia

Sávio Freire is an Assistant Professor at the Federal Institute of Ceará. He holds a Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the Federal University of Bahia and an MS degree in Computer Science from the State University of Ceará. He is a member of the Technical Debt Research Team (https://www.tdresearchteam.com/home) and the Systems and Software Engineering Laboratory (https://sites.google.com/view/labes2/home). His research interest encompasses technical debt and empirical software engineering.

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Hearing the Voice of Software Practitioners on Technical Debt Monitoring: Understanding Monitoring Practices and the Practices' Avoidance Reasons

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Sávio Freire, Federal Institute of Ceará and Federal University of Bahia

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