Hearing the Voice of Software Practitioners on Technical Debt Monitoring: Understanding Monitoring Practices and the Practices' Avoidance Reasons
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.
Authors
- Alexia Pacheco (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6323-4064)
- Boris Pérez (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9249-1756)
- Nebojša Taušan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9663-7951)
- Rodrigo Spínola (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0272-9578)
- Vladimir Mandić (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6996-2222)
- Manoel Mendonça (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0874-7665)
- Carolyn Seaman (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6588-9830)
- Sávio Freire (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3989-9442)
- Clemente Izurieta (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1002-3906)
- Darío Correal (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9502-4504)
- Camilo Castellanos (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3301-8720)
- Nicolli Rios
- Davide Falessi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6340-0058)
- Gustavo López (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0510-8857)
- Robert Ramač (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7555-138X)
Institutions
- University of Rome Tor Vergata (IT)
- Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (BR)
- Universidade Federal da Bahia (BR)
- University of Novi Sad (RS)
- Virginia Commonwealth University (US)
- Montana State University (US)
- Idaho National Laboratory (US)
- Francisco de Paula Santander University (CO)
- Universidad de Costa Rica (CR)
- Universidad de Los Andes (BO)
- University of Maryland, Baltimore County (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Journal of Software Engineering Research and Development
- Published
- 2024-08-30
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.5753/jserd.2024.4011
- Citations
- 3
- Primary Topic
- Software Engineering Techniques and Practices
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 2.34
Funders
- Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior
- Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico