Managing Technical Debt in Product Roadmaps Through Quantitative Prioritization Frameworks

Authors

Vandana Badiou
Technical Debt and Software Quality Strategist, France

Keywords:

Technical Debt, Product Roadmap, Quantitative Prioritization, Software Quality, Decision Framework, Agile Development, Architecture Debt, TD Metrics, Debt Refactoring, Portfolio Management

Synopsis

Technical debt (TD) refers to the long-term cost of choosing sub-optimal solutions for short-term delivery gains. Managing TD effectively is critical to maintaining software quality and scalability. However, prioritizing TD within product roadmaps remains a challenge, particularly in fast-paced agile environments. This research explores how quantitative prioritization frameworks can support strategic TD management within product roadmaps. It synthesizes state-of-the-art frameworks, presents a decision-making model, and evaluates them across empirical data from multiple software product case studies. Our findings highlight the efficacy of combining risk metrics, value-driven scoring, and architectural impact assessments in roadmap planning.

References

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Published

February 24, 2025

Series

Research paper
Copyright (c) 2025 Vandana Badiou (Author)

License

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.