A portfolio approach to technical debt management

TLDR

Technical debt represents the future maintenance effort required for immature software artifacts, and its uncertain “interest” payment complicates decisions about when and what debt to incur or repay. The paper proposes a portfolio approach to aid software managers in making informed technical debt decisions. It applies portfolio management theory to identify the optimal set of technical debt items to incur or hold. The authors anticipate that this approach offers a new perspective on technical debt management.

Abstract

Technical debt describes the effect of immature software artifacts on software maintenance - the potential of extra effort required in future as if paying interest for the incurred debt. The uncertainty of interest payment further complicates the problem of what debt should be incurred or repaid and when. To help software managers make informed decisions, a portfolio approach is proposed in this paper. The approach leverages the portfolio management theory in the finance domain to determine the optimal collection of technical debt items that should be incurred or held. We expect this approach could provide a new perspective for technical debt management.