Finding and Fixing Design Debt

Abstract

In this talk I will discuss a common and pernicious form of technical debt–called design debt, or architecture debt. I will briefly present the theoretical foundation behind this form of debt and present a broad set of evidence demonstrating its dramatic effects on project outcomes. That is the bad news. The good news is that we can fully automatically pinpoint the causes and scope of such debt. I will describe how we can automatically locate it, measure it, and create the business case for removing it. Finally, I will explain how we can remove–pay down–this debt via refactoring. I will also sketch some of my experiences in transitioning the tooling to do so with industrial partners, and describe some of their experiences and outcomes.