Estratégia baseada em critérios para apoiar a tomada de decisão sobre o pagamento de itens da dívida técnica: um estudo replicado

Abstract

The term Technical Debt (DT) is used to describe the long-term costs arising from shortcuts taken in the development and evolution of the software. Incurring DT can help achieve project objectives more quickly, but the team must manage the debt items to prevent the project from having its evolving costs increased. Management strategies can minimize the negative impacts of debt accrual by identifying and evaluating when and when debt items should be paid. Thus, using decision criteria to support the choice of the most appropriate time to pay for these items can balance the benefits with the costs of TD. However, although many debt management strategies have been proposed in recent years, none of them have dealt specifically with the use of criteria to support decision-making on the most opportune time to pay off the debt. In this scenario, this paper presents the results of the replication of a study to evaluate the applicability of a TD management strategy based on the use of decision criteria on its payment. The replication of the study seeks to help in increasing the external validity of the results, providing that the results are more generalizable. Replication based on previous insights is widely recommended in the experimental software engineering paradigm. By performing the replication of the study, it was verified possible to have gained in the speed, productivity and ease in the management of TD with the use of the strategy. Participants stated that they would prefer to use the strategy to evaluate and monitor TD. Thus, the study confirms Ribeiro' conclusions (2016). The results once again indicated that TD Manager assists in supporting DT's management activities.