Technical Debt Management in Continuous Software Engineering: State of the Art and Research Agenda

Abstract

Software companies have streamlined their engineering processes, and continuous development has been key to achieving flexible, market‐driven software solutions. Continuous software engineering (CSE) emerged as an approach to iteratively develop and maintain software, integrating business strategy, development, and operations aligned with agile principles. CSE activities also lead to technical debt (TD) buildup, negatively impacting software quality over time, so technical debt management (TDM) in CSE is crucial. However, TD in CSE is still poorly understood, as well as its causes and consequences, and how to better manage it. In addition, to the best of our knowledge, no study has investigated TDM in CSE. This paper then presents the state of the art of TDM in CSE, focusing on TD causes and consequences and how to manage them continuously. For this, we carefully examined the literature and selected 56 relevant studies from an initial set of 1299. Our main findings indicate that the field is relatively young and has considerable industry involvement. While most studies reported an experience with TD in continuous and agile contexts or the use of systematic approaches for TDM (e.g., frameworks and processes), none investigated TD explicitly in CSE or tried to understand its causes and consequences in those contexts. Some CSE activities addressed TD, particularly those associated with development, such as continuous architecting, coding, verification/testing, and documentation. Other important activities at the business and operation levels were left aside. These findings supported us in defining a research agenda with important research opportunities that could contribute to maturing the field.