Stakeholder mapping of a Danish Agency Portfolio Management combined with Technical Debt creation: An embedded case study

Digitalizing the Government has led to countless IT systems. These systems need to be maintained to prevent decay and stand-still. Shortcuts and unsuitable choices during the development or maintenance of an IT-system can have negative consequences e.g., inefficiency, instability and complicate future development of the IT system. This phenomenon is known as technical debt. Previous studies of technical debt have focused on the private sector, this leaves a gap to study technical debt in the public sector. We conduct an embedded case study and investigate technical debt in a Danish Agency by examining four IT systems. We conducted 17 interviews, participatory observation over a period of five months and document analysis. We apply stakeholder theory to identify the external and internal stakeholders influencing an Agency’s portfolio management and its IT maintenance. We map the stakeholders according to the technical debt types they create and are affected by. We find the stakeholders differ between the IT systems, this is important because the type of stakeholder impacts the prioritization of the IT system and how it is managed. This study contributes IT portfolio management by providing rich empirical insights on internal and external stakeholders affecting the IT portfolio management.