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International Conference on Product-Focused Software Process Improvement

PROFES 2016: Product-Focused Software Process Improvement pp 368–378Cite as

Developing Processes to Increase Technical Debt Visibility and Manageability – An Action Research Study in Industry

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNPSE,volume 10027))

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.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Lappeenranta University of Technology, Lappeenranta, Finland

    Jesse Yli-Huumo & Andrey Maglyas

  2. Aalto University, Espoo, Finland

    Kari Smolander

  3. Tieto Sweden AB, Stockholm, Sweden

    Johan Haller

  4. Tieto Oyj, Helsinki, Finland

    Hannu Törnroos

Authors
  1. Jesse Yli-Huumo
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  2. Andrey Maglyas
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  3. Kari Smolander
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  4. Johan Haller
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  5. Hannu Törnroos
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jesse Yli-Huumo .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

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

    Pekka Abrahamsson

  2. Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering, Kaiserslautern, Germany

    Andreas Jedlitschka

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

    Anh Nguyen Duc

  4. University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria

    Michael Felderer

  5. Okayama Prefectural University, Soja, Japan

    Sousuke Amasaki

  6. Tampere University of Technology, Tampere, Finland

    Tommi Mikkonen

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Yli-Huumo, J., Maglyas, A., Smolander, K., Haller, J., Törnroos, H. (2016). Developing Processes to Increase Technical Debt Visibility and Manageability – An Action Research Study in Industry. In: Abrahamsson, P., Jedlitschka, A., Nguyen Duc, A., Felderer, M., Amasaki, S., Mikkonen, T. (eds) Product-Focused Software Process Improvement. PROFES 2016. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10027. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49094-6_24

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49094-6_24

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-49093-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-49094-6

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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