Perspectives on Managing Technical Debt: A Transition Point and Roadmap from Dagstuhl

Thirty-three practitioners, researchers, students, and tool vendors gathered in Dagstuhl, Germany, for five days in April 2016 to discuss the state of managing technical debt in software engineering. Participants reflected on the significant advances that the Managing Technical Debt (MTD) community has made since its inception in 2010; reached a consensus on a definition, called the Dagstuhl 16K technical debt definition; and discussed avenues for future progress in the area. This paper provides a brief history, summarizes current research, and offers a roadmap and a vision that describe the areas of research where significant challenges remain. Keywords—technical debt; software quality; software decay; software economics; software project management