Developing processes to increase technical debt visibility and manageability – An action research study in industry

Abstract

The knowledge about technical debt and its management has increased in recent years. The interest of academia and industry has generated many viewpoints on technical debt. Technical debt management consists of technical and organizational aspects, which make it a challenge in software development. To increase technical debt visibility and manageability, new processes must be developed and thoroughly empirically tested for their applicability. In this paper, we use the action research methodology to design processes for identification, documentation, and prioritization of technical debt. Our partner in this research is a large Nordic IT company Tieto, currently in a need for new ways to improve their technical debt management. The results include a set of processes and templates that were successfully used to identify and document technical debt. The identified technical debt items were later prioritized based on evaluation by Tieto employees. Tieto was able to create a prioritized technical debt backlog, which is now used for reduction activities to create a healthy and sustainable product for the future.