Summary: Building and evaluating a theory of architectural technical debt in software-intensive systems

Paper in proceeding, 2021

This paper reports a summary of a study on Architectural Technical Debt (ATD) published in the Journal of Software and Systems [1]. By borrowing from the 16162 definition of technical debt, we can define ATD as a collection of design or implementation constructs, present at the architectural level of software-intensive systems, that are expedient in the short term, but set up a technical context that can make future changes more costly or impossible. In the study we aimed at investigating how software practitioners conceptualize ATD, and how they deal with it. In order to do so, we conducted a mixed-method empirical study constituted by a Glaserian grounded theory, followed by an evaluation and refinement of the emerging theory via focus groups. The result of our investigation constitutes an encompassing conceptual model of architectural technical debt, identifying and relating concepts such as its symptoms, causes, consequences, management strategies, and communication problems. The emerging theory can support both research and practitioners with structured knowledge about the crucial factors of architectural technical debt experienced in industrial contexts.