A simulation study of practical methods for technical debt management in agile software development

Abstract

Technical debt is a well understood yet understudied phenomena. A current issue is the verification and validation of proposed methods for technical debt management in the context of agile development. In practice, such evaluations are either too costly or too time consuming to be conducted using traditional empirical methods. In this paper, we describe a set of simulations based on models of the agile development process, Scrum, and the integration of technical debt management. The purpose of this study is to identify which strategy is superior and to provide empirical evidence to support existing claims. The models presented are based upon conceptual and industry models concerning defects and technical debt. The results of the simulations provide compelling evidence for current technical debt management strategies proposed in the literature that can be immediately applied by practitioners.