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The Perception and Management of Technical Debt in Software Startups

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Fundamentals of Software Startups

Abstract

The software startups are a particular scenario where Technical Debt (TD) may occur in an intentional or unintentional way. However, the current knowledge about the perception and management of TD are mainly related to mature software organizations. This chapter contextualizes the startups’ characteristics that can lead to TD incurrence, the concepts related to TD and its management, and presents the results of a survey with Uruguayan software startups. The survey’s primary goal was to understand how software startups perceive and manage TD in their projects. The results refer to the level of understanding of the startup’s practitioners concerning TD concept, the adopted Technical Debt Management (TDM) activities, and the strategies and technologies used in their projects to support such activities. The findings show that startups seem to invest time and effort in TDM activities being TD prevention, one of the most conducted activities. Besides that, it was observed that the participant’s experience and the size of the organization seem to be also related to the perception and management of TD.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay

    Cecilia Apa & Diego Vallespir

  2. Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro/UFRJ - COPPE, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil

    Helvio Jeronimo, Luciana M. Nascimento & Guilherme Horta Travassos

Authors
  1. Cecilia Apa
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  2. Helvio Jeronimo
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  3. Luciana M. Nascimento
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  4. Diego Vallespir
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  5. Guilherme Horta Travassos
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Cecilia Apa .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Business and IT, University of Southeast Norway, Bø i Telemark, Norway

    Anh Nguyen-Duc

  2. Center for Entrepreneurship, Reutlingen University, Reutlingen, Germany

    Jürgen Münch

  3. School of Technology, PUCRS, Porto Alegre, Brazil

    Rafael Prikladnicki

  4. Facoltà di Scienze e Tecnologie Informatiche, La Libera Università di Bolzano, Bolzano, Italy

    Xiaofeng Wang

  5. Faculty of Information Technology, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland

    Pekka Abrahamsson

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Apa, C., Jeronimo, H., Nascimento, L.M., Vallespir, D., Travassos, G.H. (2020). The Perception and Management of Technical Debt in Software Startups. In: Nguyen-Duc, A., Münch, J., Prikladnicki, R., Wang, X., Abrahamsson, P. (eds) Fundamentals of Software Startups. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35983-6_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35983-6_4

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-35982-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-35983-6

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