Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

International Conference on Software Business

ICSOB 2019: Software Business pp 413–418Cite as

Technical Debt Trade-Off - Experiences from Software Startups Becoming Grownups

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing ((LNBIP,volume 370))

Abstract

Software startups are software-intensive early-stage companies that have high growth rates. Their time to market is often regarded as short and decisive in establishing their product/service success, thus leading to short-cuts in software engineering decisions. High accumulation of the technical debt at early stages has been documented from previous investigations. How startups rapidly becoming grownups perceive technical debt, make the primary goal of our study. We conducted semi-structured interviews with six technical and executive officers from five software startups, selected using purposive sampling. We identified four critical perceptions (managing, accepting, avoiding, ignoring technical debt) which permit them to make technical debt trade-offs. We also found that no one size fits all. Startups need to make deliberate educated decisions on how to use technical debt in their advantage.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Metaphoric concept of TD has been first introduced by Ward Cunningham [4] in 1992.

  2. 2.

    Grownups are well established companies with market revenue being primary source of income.

References

  1. Abrahamsson, P., et al.: Software startups - a research agenda. e-Informatica Softw. Eng. J 10(1), 1–28 (2016)

    MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  2. Besker, T., et al.: Embracing technical debt, from a startup company perspective. In: 2018 IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance and Evolution (ICSME), pp. 415–425. IEEE (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Braun, V., Clarke, V.: Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qual. Res. Psychol. 3(2), 77–101 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Cunningham, W.: The WyCash portfolio management system, Experience Report. In: Proceedings on Object-Oriented Programming Systems, Languages, and Applications (OOPSLA 1992) (1992)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Devos, N., Durieux, D., Ponsard, C.: Managing technical debt in IT start-ups-an industrial survey. In: International Conference on Software and System Engineering and Their Applications (ICSSEA) (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Giardino, C., et al.: Software development in startup companies: the greenfield startup model. IEEE Trans. Softw. Eng. 42(6), 585–604 (2016)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Runeson, P., Höost, M.: Guidelines for conducting and reporting case study research in software engineering. Empir. Softw. Eng. 14(2), 131 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Tom, E., Aurum, A.K., Vidgen, R.: An exploration of technical debt. J. Syst. Softw. 86(6), 1498–1516 (2013)

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgement

This work was funded by the Norwegian Research Council under the project IPIT Project Number: 274816. Many thanks to Prof. Letizia Jaccheri, for the support as project leader.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway

    Orges Cico

Authors
  1. Orges Cico
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Orges Cico .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Tampere University of Technology, Pori, Finland

    Sami Hyrynsalmi

  2. University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland

    Mari Suoranta

  3. University of South-Eastern Norway, Bø i Telemark, Norway

    Anh Nguyen-Duc

  4. University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland

    Pasi Tyrväinen

  5. University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland

    Pekka Abrahamsson

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this paper

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this paper

Cico, O. (2019). Technical Debt Trade-Off - Experiences from Software Startups Becoming Grownups. In: Hyrynsalmi, S., Suoranta, M., Nguyen-Duc, A., Tyrväinen, P., Abrahamsson, P. (eds) Software Business. ICSOB 2019. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 370. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33742-1_34

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33742-1_34

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-33741-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-33742-1

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation