SEAA 2018

Software Engineering and Technical Debt (SEaTeD)

In software engineering, the metaphor Technical Debt relates sub-optimal technical solutions to financial debts. Such solutions can have benefits in the short term, but they might create extra-costs (interest) in the future, especially in terms of maintainability and evolvability of the software system.

The Technical Debt theoretical framework is useful to translate technical issues into items that can be understood by non-technical stakeholders, who need to evaluate and prioritize the business value of improving internal qualities.

Recently, the Technical Debt metaphor has been developed in the Software Engineering scientific community into a more solid theoretical framework, which has allowed a series of studies and practical approaches. However, there are several open issues with respect to the application of Technical Debt in practice, from its identification to the calculation of the principal (cost of refactoring) and interest. Furthermore, we lack solid evidence on what granularity of information is needed by the stakeholders on their Technical Debt, what can be provided by automatic tools and what needs to be managed manually.

We invite researchers and practitioners to contribute to the special session on the practical and theoretical aspects of the Technical Debt. We especially welcome empirical studies and industrial experiences.

The topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Case-studies on (un)successful Technical Debt management
• Case-studies on (un)successful refactoring of Technical Debt
• Evidence of Principal and Interest of specific kinds of Technical Debt
• Frameworks for the estimation of Principal and Interest
• Stakeholders concerns and architecture viewpoints on Technical Debt
• Measurement frameworks to study the components of Technical Debt
• Decision frameworks for prioritizing Technical Debt items among themselves and against features
• Methods and tools for monitoring Technical Debt
• Processes for managing Technical Debt in software companies
• Organizational implications of Technical Debt Management
• Architectural Technical Debt
• Less studied kinds of Technical Debt: Requirement, Test, Documentation, Infrastructure Debt
• Social Debt and its impact on Technical Debt
• Technical Debt in embedded systems
• Relationships between Technical Debt in software development and other interacting disciplines (e.g. electrical-, mechanical engineering, etc.)
• Comparison and relationships between Technical Debt and other topics (e.g. sustainability, DevOps, etc.)
• Replication studies on Technical Debt

Session-specific deadlines:

• Abstract submission deadline: 25^th March 2018
• Paper Submission Deadline: 1^st April 2018
• Notification of Acceptance: 15^th May 2018
• Camera-Ready Papers: 15^th June 2018

Session Chairs

Antonio Martini CA Technologies and University of Oslo, Sweden

Paris Avgeriou University of Groningen, the Netherlands

Program Committee

Apostolos Ampatzoglou, University of Groningen

Areti Ampatzoglou, University of Groningen

Francesca Arcelli Fontana, University of Milano Bicocca

Rami Bahsoon, School of Computer Sc, University of Birmingham

Ayse Bener, Ryerson University

Terese Besker, Chalmers University of Technology

Jan Bosch, Chalmers University of Technology

Frank Buschmann, Siemens AG

Alexander Chatzigeorgiou, Dept. of Applied Informatics, University of Macedonia

Zadia Codabux, Colby College

Steven Fraser, Innoxec

Alfredo Goldman, University of São Paulo

Christine Hofmeister, East Stroudsburg University

Johannes Holvitie, University of Turku

Clemente Izurieta, Montana State University

Heiko Koziolek, ABB Corporate Research

Philippe Kruchten, The University of British Columbia

Ville Leppänen, University of Turku, Department of Future Technologies

Jean-Louis, Letouzey, inspearit

Leon Moonen, Simula Research Laboratory

Ipek Ozkaya, Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute

Fabio Q. B. Da Silva, Federal University of Pernambuco

Klaus Schmid, University of Hildesheim

Carolyn Seaman, UMBC

Andriy Shapochka, SoftServe Inc.

Dag Sjøberg, Department of Informatics, University of Oslo

Will Snipes, ABB Corporate Research

Kari Systä, Tampere University of Technology

Amjed Tahir, Massey University

Damian Andrew, Tamburri, Politecnico di Milano

Graziela Tonin, Ufpe

Guilherme Travassos, COPPE/UFRJ

Aiko Yamashita, Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences

Uwe Zdun, University of Vienna