Technical debt in the engineering of complex systems

Ye Yang, Dinesh Verma

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

Abstract

Technical debt (TD) is a widely adopted metaphor in the software engineering field, referring to short-term compromises in software artifacts that make future refactoring or maintenance very expensive or even impossible. Using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) decisions as examples, this chapter adapts the TD metaphor to the systems engineering field, expands the TD landscape and taxonomies, and discusses strategies and tactics to cope with TD in the context of engineering complex systems. We expect that the TD notion and taxonomy inspire alternative perspectives for the analysis, communication, and alignment of design decisions across cross-organizational stakeholders, with the intention to mitigate challenging integration and obsolescence issues in the engineering of complex systems.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationSystems Engineering for the Digital Age
Subtitle of host publicationPractitioner Perspectives
Pages419-434
Number of pages16
ISBN (Electronic)9781394203314
DOIs
StatePublished - 29 Sep 2023

Keywords

  • Acquisition
  • COTS
  • Complex systems
  • Obsolescence
  • Technical debt

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