Understanding technical debt

Overview

Goals

To understand the concept of technical debt, which refers to the fact that a project implementation team will benefit in the long-term from additional, up-front investment in the sound organization of a project at the beginning of the implementation process. This is contrasted to choosing an easy solution instead, which in the long-term may introduce additional costs in terms of project maintenance.

Learning Objectives

Upon completion of the activity students will: - Understand the concept of technical debt. - Be able to use the new knowledge in software development or other engineering projects.

Context

The game exposes learners to the concept of “Technical Debt”, namely the fact that an implementation team must invest early on a good implementation plan. If not, it risks rising future implementation costs as a result of choosing an “easy” and insufficient implementation. The application is a simulator of “sprints”, namely work cycles in the context of agile processes. The player is encouraged to invest (or not) in the implementation of a project before each sprint cycle. The simulator demonstrates at the completion of 10 sprints the technical debt amassed as a result of the investment choices. The lower the debt, the better the player has performed. The game may be deployed in the context of software engineering courses or any course in which sound project management and investing in effective production design is of benefit.