“Increasing Your Velocity by Fixing Software Architecture Design Debt,” Rick Kazman, Ph.D., CMU SEI

Session 8 of the planned 12 Sessions in the INCOSE-CMU Lunch 'n Learn Series. 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 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 doing all of this in real-world projects, along with the outcomes.