Workshop on Managing Technical Debt at ICSE 2013

Fourth International Workshop on Managing Technical Debt at ICSE 2013
San Francisco, California, May 20, 2013
Invited Speaker: Steve McConnell

http://www.sei.cmu.edu/community/td2013/

On May 20, 2013, we will be conducting a workshop in conjunction with the International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE 2013) in San Francisco to scrutinize the diverse issues that are related to technical debt and the software development lifecycle.

Managing technical debt is a broad concern of software engineering that blends research and practice. This can be seen from the program that covers topics such as models for measuring and optimizing technical debt, economic models, tool support, managing dependencies, empirical studies, and use of the metaphor and related techniques in practice. To encourage interactive discussion, brainstorming, and community building the workshop will consist of short presentations from the accepted papers. These short presentations will provide a basis for the participants to investigate further open research questions and challenges in practice. It is for that purpose that the program includes sessions dedicated to open discussion.

We invite members of the software engineering community to join us. The details of the program and other logistics are at our workshop site.

– Robert Nord, SEI

Steve McConnell to Speak at Fourth International Workshop on Managing Technical Debt (ICSE 2013)

Fourth International Workshop on Managing Technical Debt at ICSE 2013
San Francisco, California, May 20, 2013
Submission deadline: February 7, 2013
http://www.sei.cmu.edu/community/td2013/

The submission deadline for the Fourth International Workshop on Managing Technical Debt is fast approaching on February 7.

We just learned that Steve McConnell, expert on technical debt, accepted our offer to be a featured speaker at the workshop.

Steve McConnell is CEO and Chief Software Engineer at Construx Software. Steve is the author of Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art (2006), Code Complete (1993, 2004), Rapid Development (1996), Software Project Survival Guide (1998), and Professional Software Development (2004). His first two books won Software Development magazine’s Jolt Excellence award for best programming books of their years.

Mary Poppendieck, Expert on Lean Software Development, Will Keynote SATURN 2013

Mary Poppendieck, award-winning author and expert on Lean software development, will deliver a keynote address at the Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute’s annual software architecture conference. The SEI Architecture Technology User Network (SATURN) 2013 Conference, which will be held April 29 through May 3, 2013, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, will feature three keynote addresses by leaders in the field of software architecture.

Here is a press release announcing Mary Poppendieck’s keynote address at SATURN.

 

Call for Papers, Fourth International Workshop on Managing Technical Debt at ICSE 2013

Fourth International Workshop on Managing Technical Debt at ICSE 2013
San Francisco, California, May 20, 2013
Submission deadline: February 7, 2013
http://www.sei.cmu.edu/community/td2013/

On May 20, 2013, we will be organizing a workshop in conjunction with the International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE 2013) in San Francisco to scrutinize the diverse issues that are related to technical debt and the software development lifecycle. We invite practitioners and researchers to join us in discussing early findings, future directions, experiences, and results. We are seeking papers on practical experience with technical debt, and approaches to evaluate and manage technical debt. The details of the call for papers and other logistics are at our workshop site.

SEI Podcast Series: An Architecture-Focused Measurement Framework for Managing Technical Debt

Managing technical debt, which refers to the rework and degraded quality resulting from overly hasty delivery of software capabilities to users, is an increasingly critical aspect of producing cost-effective, timely, and high-quality software products. A delicate balance is needed between the desire to release new software capabilities rapidly to satisfy users and the desire to practice sound software engineering that reduces rework. In this podcast at the SEI website, Ipek Ozkaya discusses the SEI’s research on the strategic management of technical debt, which involves decisions made to defer necessary work during the planning or execution of a software project.

Links: Ipek Ozkaya on Technical Debt, Agile, and Architecture

In this interview with Ipek Ozkaya of the SEI at the techdebt report blog, Ipek discusses definitions of “technical debt,” the connections between technical debt and Agile development practices, SEI research in the management of technical debt, measurement, and other related topics.

Readers will also be interested in this post at the SEI blog titled “Strategic Management of Architectural Technical Debt” by SEI Principal Researcher Douglas C. Schmidt (who was a keynote speaker at SATURN 2012). In this post, Doug reprises Ipek’s talk on the strategic management of technical debt at the SEI-hosted Agile Research Forum.

Ipek Ozkaya is a senior member of the technical staff at SEI who works to develop empirical methods for improving software development efficiency and system evolution with a focus on software architecture practices, software economics, and requirements management. Her latest publications include multiple articles on these subjects focusing on agile architecting, dependency management, and architectural technical debt. Ozkaya serves on the advisory board of IEEE Software.

Rapid Lifecycle Development in an Agile Context

This blog post at the SEI blog describes research on providing software and systems architects with a decision-making framework for reducing integration risk with Agile methods, thereby reducing the time and resources needed for related work.

The research explores the implications of decisions made over the course of the software and systems lifecycle. It examines when these decisions are made and the time when the implications surface to validate the following hypotheses:

1. The fundamental early decisions made during the pre-engineering and manufacturing development (pre-EMD) phase have an impact throughout the lifecycle.
2. The implications of the early decisions often surface in the final stages of the lifecycle, downstream from development.

Read the full post here.

Tutorial on Technical Debt Added to SATURN 2012 Program

The SATURN 2012 Program Committee has made a change to one of the tutorials scheduled for the morning of Friday, May 11 at SATURN. Tutorial 6 (T6) will now be Strategic Management of Technical Debt, by Robert Nord and Ipek Ozkaya of the SEI.

Nord and Ozkaya, along with Philippe Kruchten of the University of British Columbia, will conduct a workshop on managing technical debt at the International Conference on Software Engineering in June and are editors of a forthcoming special issue of IEEE Software devoted to the topic. Here is more information about the SEI’s work in shaping a research agenda for managing technical debt.

IEEE Software Special Issue on Technical Debt

We have written a number of posts on managing technical debt, part of the SEI’s ongoing research agenda on providing a software architecture perspective to managing agility at scale.

In our most recent post, Ipek Ozkaya discusses how an architecture-focused analysis approach helps manage technical debt by enabling software engineers to decide the best time to rearchitect—in other words, to pay down the technical debt.

SATURN 2012 Registration Now Open

Registration is now open for the eighth annual SEI Architecture Technology User Network (SATURN) 2012 Conference. Register by April 9 to take advantage of early-bird savings, which include $250 off the regular full-conference rate.

SATURN 2012 will be held May 7-11, 2012 in St. Petersburg, Florida  at the St. Petersburg Bayfront Hilton hotel. The conference is presented in collaboration with IEEE Software magazine.

Architecture: Catalyst for Collaboration

The SATURN 2012 program includes more than 25 technical sessions, tutorials, courses, panel discussions, and keynote addresses that will explore how effective collaboration across geographical, cultural, and technical boundaries is increasingly prevalent and essential to system success. You will leave the SATURN 2012 conference with new ideas and solutions to implement in your organization. You will also have the opportunity to

• Share ideas and hear case studies on hot topics including cloud computing; software architecture for ultra-large-scale systems; certification, culture, and process; architecture evaluation and review; enterprise architecture; and the interaction of architecture and Agile development
• Take the first public offering of a new course from the SEI, the Advanced Software Architecture Workshop
• Learn from and interact with industry leaders (including keynote speakers Michael Stal and Andy Hunt), researchers, and senior members of the SEI staff

To register and review rates, visit the SATURN 2012 website. We hope to see you in Florida!