5 Recommendations to Help Your Organization Manage Technical Debt.
The fiscal year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) Section 835, “Independent Study on Technical Debt in Software-Intensive Systems,” required the Secretary of Defense to engage a federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) “to study technical debt in software-intensive systems.” To satisfy this requirement and lead this work, the Department of Defense (DoD) selected the Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) Software Engineering Institute (SEI), which is a recognized leader in the practice of managing technical debt. According to NDAA Section 835, the purpose of the study was to provide, among other things, analyses and recommendations on quantitative measures for assessing technical debt, current and best practices for measuring and managing technical debt and its associated costs, and practices for reducing technical debt. Our team spent more than a year conducting the independent study. The report we produced describes the conduct of the study, summarizes the technical trends observed, and presents the resulting recommendations. In this SEI Blog post, we summarize several recommendations that apply to the DoD and other development organizations seeking to analyze, manage, and reduce technical debt. You can find a complete discussion of the study methodology, findings, and recommendations in the SEI’s Report to the Congressional Defense Committees on National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2022 Section 835 Independent Study on Technical Debt in Software-Intensive Systems.