Software is made for people - but software is also made by people. People whose craftsmanship works miracles are often the same people whose fallible nature leads to sweeping problems under the carpet. This silent accumulation of inefficiencies is the root cause of Technical Debt that compromises the internal quality of software systems and puts their evolution at risk. But isn’t this natural? After all, we are humans, not dancers “afraid to take one step out of line” (The Killers, Human, 2008), to quote the meaning behind the lyrics of the title’s song. This talk will explore how humans are involved and affect the entire spectrum of Technical Debt management activities.

Alexander Chatzigeorgiou is a Professor of Software Engineering and Object-Oriented Design in the Department of Applied Informatics at the University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece. Since 2023, he has served as Vice Rector of Extroversion and International Relations. He received the Diploma in Electrical Engineering and the Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, in 1996 and 2000, respectively. His research interests include technical debt, software maintenance, software evolution analysis and empirical studies in software engineering. He is a senior associate editor for the Journal of Systems and Software and an associate editor for the ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology.