Author ORCID Identifier
Maheshwar Boodraj: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1243-3335
Mark Keil: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9203-2277
Abstract
In agile software development projects, the focus on frequent software delivery may encourage shortcuts that lead to technical debt. Little is known, however, about the most important causes of technical debt in the agile software development context. In this study, we recruited 86 experts and conducted a ranking-type Delphi study to examine and compare the perceptions of IT project managers and software developers regarding the most important causes of technical debt in agile software development projects. Our study achieved consensus on 15 causes most important to IT project managers and 12 causes most important to software developers. Further, we identified the causes that both groups agreed were among the most important (i.e., the zone of concordance) and those that only one group considered among the most important (i.e., zones of discordance). Follow-up interviews revealed techniques for managing the causes of technical debt in the zone of concordance as well as possible explanations for the observed differences in the zones of discordance.
Recommended Citation
Boodraj, M., & Keil, M. (In press). Reconciling IT Project Manager and Software Developer Perceptions: A Delphi Study of the Causes of Technical Debt in Agile Software Development Projects. Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 58, pp-pp. Retrieved from https://aisel.aisnet.org/cais/vol58/iss1/91
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