Value-Based Technical Debt Model and Its Application

The majority of software development today is being conducted in a value-neutral setting, where each functionality once being locked down as a part of software release is treated as equally important. This limited visibility of the real value perceived by customer inside software engineering organizational departments has significant consequences in the way the technical quality of the product is being evaluated and maintained. The relentless pursuit of efficiency in the software engineering domain requires a broader view of long-term economical consequences of any product-related decision. Technical debt typically is an internalized (engineering-based) assessment. We propose to expand the understanding and visibility of the technical debt by introducing a model driven approach to provide the means to assess the technical debt impact on perceived product quality parameters, such as codebase/design and architecture, engineering productivity, and finally the company's business return on the engineering investment. Furthermore, the case studies presented in this paper are focused on the application of the technical debt concept—how it could be identified, measured and what are the consequences of not managing it. The key principles of this concept were proved to be valid while evaluating the development of a major software system release. Finally, the need for balanced view for the technical debt management strategy is discussed, to ensure pay-off benefits are aligned with time-to-market expectations.

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