Multivocal Literature Review on Non-Technical Debt in Software Development: An Exploratory Study

Hina Saeeda, Muhammad Ahmad, Tomas Gustavsson

2023

Abstract

Earlier research has focused on technical debt (TD). While numerous issues connected to non-technical aspects of software development (SD) that are equally worthy of ”debt” status are neglected. Simultaneously, these types of debts regularly develop significant challenges to be addressed, demonstrating that the debt metaphor may be used to reason about elements other than technical ones. It motivates us to create the new umbrella term ”Non-Technical Debt” (NTD) to investigate people, processes, culture, social, and organizational concerns under its cover. All types of debt are similar in some ways, and they are often caused by making risky decisions. Therefore, ignoring any one dimension of debt can have severe consequences on the successful completion of the SD projects. This study investigates recent literature on the current state of knowledge about NTD, its causes, and mitigation strategies. We identified 40 primary studies out of 110 records published until April 2022. By using a thematic analysis approach, we found five NTD types (i.e., people, process, culture, social, and organizational). We further identified their accumulation causes and discussed remedies for mitigation

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Saeeda H., Ahmad M. and Gustavsson T. (2023). Multivocal Literature Review on Non-Technical Debt in Software Development: An Exploratory Study. In Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Evaluation of Novel Approaches to Software Engineering - Volume 1: ENASE, ISBN 978-989-758-647-7, SciTePress, pages 89-101. DOI: 10.5220/0011772300003464

in Bibtex Style

@conference{enase23,
author={Hina Saeeda and Muhammad Ahmad and Tomas Gustavsson},
title={Multivocal Literature Review on Non-Technical Debt in Software Development: An Exploratory Study},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Evaluation of Novel Approaches to Software Engineering - Volume 1: ENASE,},
year={2023},
pages={89-101},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0011772300003464},
isbn={978-989-758-647-7},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Evaluation of Novel Approaches to Software Engineering - Volume 1: ENASE,
TI - Multivocal Literature Review on Non-Technical Debt in Software Development: An Exploratory Study
SN - 978-989-758-647-7
AU - Saeeda H.
AU - Ahmad M.
AU - Gustavsson T.
PY - 2023
SP - 89
EP - 101
DO - 10.5220/0011772300003464
PB - SciTePress