Architectural Technical Debt Identification: Moving Forward

Abstract

Architectural technical debt is a metaphor used to describe sub-optimal architectural design and implementation choices that bring short-term benefits to the cost of the long-term gradual deterioration of the quality of software. Architectural technical debt is an active field of research. Nevertheless, how to accurately identify architectural technical debt is still an open question. Our research aims to fill this gap. We strive to: (i) consolidate the existing knowledge of architectural technical debt identification in practice, (ii) conceive novel identification approaches built upon the existing state of the art techniques and industrial needs, and (iii) provide empirical evidence of architectural technical debt phenomena and assess the viability of the conceived approaches.