  The technical debt (TD) metaphor describes actions made during various stages
of software development that lead to a more costly future regarding system
maintenance and evolution. According to recent studies, on average 25% of
development effort is spent, i.e. wasted, on TD caused issues in software
development organizations. However, further research is needed to investigate
the relations between various software development activities and TD. The
objective of this study is twofold. First, to get empirical insight on the
understanding and the use of the TD concept in the IT industry. Second, to
contribute towards precise conceptualization of the TD concept through analysis
of causes and effects. In order to address the research objective a family of
surveys was designed as a part of an international initiative that congregates
researchers from 12 countries -- InsighTD. At country level, national teams ran
survey replications with industry practitioners from the respective countries.
In total 653 valid responses were collected from 6 countries. Regarding the
prevalence of the TD concept 22% of practitioners have only theoretical
knowledge about it, and 47% have some practical experiences with TD
identification or management. Further analysis indicated that senior
practitioners who work in larger organizations, larger teams, and on larger
systems are more likely to be experienced with TD management. Time pressure or
deadline was the single most cited cause of TD. Regarding the effects of TD:
delivery delay, low maintainability, and rework were the most cited. InsighTD
is the first family of surveys on technical debt in software engineering. It
provided a methodological framework that allowed multiple replication teams to
conduct research activities and to contribute to a single dataset. Future work
will focus on more specific aspects of TD management.
