  Technical Debts (TD) are problems of the internal software quality. They are
often contracted due to tight project deadlines, for example quick fixes and
workarounds, and can make future changes more costly or impossible. TD
prevention should be more important than TD repayment, because subsequent
refactoring and reengineering is usually more expensive than building the right
solution from the beginning. While there are numerous works on TD repayment,
solutions for TD prevention are understudied. This paper evaluates a framework
that focuses on both TD prevention and TD repayment. It was developed by and
applied in an IT unit of a publishing house. The unique contribution of this
framework is the integration of TD management into project management. The
evaluation was carried out by a study based on ticket statistics and a
structured survey with participants from the observed IT unit and a comparison
unit. The evaluation shows that the adoption of this framework leads to a
raised awareness for the contraction of TD. This results in benefits like more
rational discussions and decisions, TD prevention and timelier repayment of TD
tickets.
