The technical debt (TD) metaphor describes actions made during various stages of software development that lead to a more costly future regarding system maintenance and evolution. According to recent studies, on average 25% of development effort is spent, i.e. wasted, on TD caused issues in software development organizations. However, further research is needed to investigate the relations between various software development activities and TD. The objective of this study is twofold. First, to get empirical insight on the understanding and the use of the TD concept in the IT industry. Second, to contribute towards precise conceptualization of the TD concept through analysis of causes and effects. In order to address the research objective a family of surveys was designed as a part of an international initiative that congregates researchers from 12 countries -- InsighTD. At country level, national teams ran survey replications with industry practitioners from the respective countries. In total 653 valid responses were collected from 6 countries. Regarding the prevalence of the TD concept 22% of practitioners have only theoretical knowledge about it, and 47% have some practical experiences with TD identification or management. Further analysis indicated that senior practitioners who work in larger organizations, larger teams, and on larger systems are more likely to be experienced with TD management. Time pressure or deadline was the single most cited cause of TD. Regarding the effects of TD: delivery delay, low maintainability, and rework were the most cited. InsighTD is the first family of surveys on technical debt in software engineering. It provided a methodological framework that allowed multiple replication teams to conduct research activities and to contribute to a single dataset. Future work will focus on more specific aspects of TD management.
翻译:技术债务比喻(TD)描述了在软件开发的各个阶段中采取的行动,导致在系统维护和演变方面的未来成本更高。根据最近的研究,平均将25%的开发努力用于(即浪费)在软件开发组织中由TD引起的问题上。然而,需要进一步研究调查各种软件开发活动与TD之间的关系。本研究报告的目标是双重的。第一,从经验上深入了解信息技术行业对TD概念的理解和使用。第二,通过分析原因和效果,促进TD概念的准确概念的精确概念化。为了实现研究目标,为了实现研究目标,将一系列调查设计成一项未来国际倡议的一部分,将来自12个国家的研究人员聚集在一起 -- -- InsearTD。在国家一级,国家小组与来自各自国家的业界从业人员进行了调查复制。总共从6个国家收集了653份有效的答复。关于TD概念的普及程度,22%的从业人员仅具有理论知识,47%在TD的识别或管理方面有一些实际经验。进一步的分析表明,在较大组织、较大团队和较大系统中工作的高级从业人员,作为未来倡议的一部分,在进行更大规模的研究方面,对来自12个国家的研究人员进行了更多的研究。在国家一级,对单个的标准化工作进行了研究。在标准管理方面,对单一的进度管理作了更多的研究。在标准管理方面,对标准管理方面,对标准管理进行了最有更大的压力。