Dívida técnica em projetos ágeis: investigando o ponto de vista dos profissionais de gerenciamento de projetos adeptos ao Stack Exchange.

Abstract

Context. Technical Debt (TD) may offer short-term benefits to software projects, but its presence can lead to a decrease in product quality. While recent literature has proposed various approaches to identify and manage Technical Debt in Agile Software Development (TD-ASD), most of them consider the perspective of software developers. However, there is a knowledge gap regarding how project management professionals perceive and address TD-ASD items. Aims. This study investigates how project management practitioners discuss and address items of Technical Debt in their professional activities. Method. To achieve this goal, an analysis of 108 discussions related to TD-ASD on the Stack Exchange Project Management (SEPM) question and answer site was performed. These discussions totaled 547 posts and 882 text comments, providing a broad overview of the topic. The analysis was conducted using both quantitative and qualitative methods, em- ploying open coding to identify TD types and indicators. Results. The study identified 74 indicators used to recognize items of TD-ASD, 126 TD management practices, and 9 types of TD. The most frequent discussions in Software Engineering Project Manage- ment (SEPM) focus on two types of technical debt, process and people, differing from previous studies with developers that mostly concentrate on code and design debt items. Additionally, the "Product Owner” and "Development Team” are the roles most invol- ved with TD-ASD. The "Sprint Backlog” and "Sprint Planning” are the Agile elements most affected by TD-ASD. The most mentioned management practices include "make the cost of TD a visible part of your process”, "create a prioritized list of TD items/tasks” and "invest time fixing/minimizing the root cause of the TD”. They are predominantly grouped in prevention and communication activities. Conclusion. Project management professionals using SEPM adopt a distinct perspective from developers when analyzing TD. The TD indicators and management practices were structured into a Sankey dia- gram, providing a valuable tool to guide TD management and support future research on the subject.