Technical debt is common. Nearly every organization has, at some point, implemented a solution to solve a critical issue quickly, trading speedy resolution for time-consuming strategic considerations. These actions are necessary to solve short-term issues, but this tech debt accumulates over time, hindering productivity, increasing costs, and impeding future development efforts.
The technical debt definition encompasses the trade-offs made during software development that result in suboptimal code or design choices. This debt accumulates over time, hindering productivity, increasing costs, and impeding future development efforts.
What is Technical Debt?
Technical debt is the metaphorical implication of taking shortcuts or making compromises during the development of a software product. It is quite similar to financial debt, whereby cost and consequences are deferred.
There are many reasons that technical debt is incurred, from time constraints to resource limitations or last-minute changes to project requirements. Examples of technical debt may include the use of outdated libraries or frameworks, a lack of documentation, or refactoring of code for readability and maintainability.
Not all technical debt is bad! It is often incurred as a necessary response to urgent conditions, and if it is taken on with an understanding of the cumulative effects and a plan for remediation, it can be a positive choice.
However, the very conditions that lead to organizations taking on technical debt (time pressure, lack of resources, changing requirements) also make it difficult to adequately measure the potential effects of technical debt over time or plan a remediation strategy.
This can have radical effects on software development over time. As tech debt grows, implementing new features and debugging and enhancement efforts will become challenging. This leads to slower development cycles, increased complexity, reduced efficiency, and higher maintenance costs.
True Cost of Technical Debt
Running legacy systems may seem less expensive than modernization, but the cost of technical debt will be felt elsewhere!
Managing Technical Debt
Addressing the cumulative consequences of technical debt is referred to as ‘managing technical debt.’ Effective technical debt management means that organizations must adopt strategies to address it, use agile approaches to reduce it, and prioritize and pay it off. Some strategies for managing tech debt include:
Code Reviews
One strategy for managing technical debt is conducting regular code reviews. By reviewing the code base, developers can identify areas where technical debt has accumulated and take steps to address it. This may include refactoring code, removing duplication, and improving overall code quality.
Designated Time and Resources
Some companies dedicate blocks of time for their teams to manage technical debt. Often called ‘debt sprints’ or ‘tech debt days’, these are times when developers focus solely on reducing technical debt without adding new features or functionality.
Agile Implementation
Agile methodologies, such as Scrum or Kanban, also effectively reduce tech debt. These methodologies emphasize iterative development and frequent feedback. Teams can address tech debt incrementally by breaking down development tasks into smaller, manageable chunks. This allows for continuous improvement and prevents tech debt from accumulating over time.
Additionally, agile practices like test-driven development (TDD) and continuous integration (CI) help detect and resolve issues early in the development process, reducing the likelihood of technical debt.
Technical debt management is crucial to maintaining a healthy code base. Organizations should prioritize technical debt based on its impact on system stability, performance, and maintainability. High-priority technical debt should be addressed first as it poses the greatest risk to overall software quality. Allocating resources and time to pay off technical debt regularly is essential, as neglecting it can lead to increased maintenance costs, decreased productivity, and a higher risk of system failures.
Unlocking Business Potential
Get practical advice on reducing debt through systems modernization and automation, ensuring faster, more reliable service delivery.
Benefits of Technical Debt Remediation
Addressing tech debt offers a range of benefits that can significantly impact operations and the ongoing success of software development. By prioritizing tech debt resolution, organizations can improve software quality and maintainability, increase productivity, and mitigate risks to help avoid future technical debt.
Key benefits of tech debt remediation include:
Better Quality
Improving software quality is one of the key advantages of addressing tech debt. Eliminating the shortcuts implemented when incurring tech debt and refactoring code means organizations can ensure that software is robust, reliable, and easier to maintain in the long run.
Higher Productivity
Technical debt can slow down the development process, as developers spend more time working around existing issues and troubleshooting problems than writing new solutions. By addressing technical debt, organizations can streamline the development workflow, reduce time spent on maintenance tasks, and empower developers to focus on building new features and delivering value to customers.
Reducing Future Tech Debt
Once technical debt has been incurred, it can exacerbate the conditions that led to it in the first place. Maintaining a system that is impacted by tech debt requires more resources, time, and effort than a system that is well-organized and strategically executed. This makes the conditions (lack of time and resources) that led to the original tech debt worse and increases the likelihood that more tech debt will be incurred in the future. By proactively addressing technical debt, organizations can prevent associated risks and take steps to prevent future tech debt.
Manage Tech Debt & Empower Your Organization
Identify and remediate technical debt and unleash your organization’s true potential! Learn more.
How to Prevent Technical Debt
While technical debt is sometimes necessary, there are times when it can be foreseen, and avoided. Adopting best practices to prevent tech debt can help an organization to ensure a smoother and more sustainable software development cycle.
Code Review and QA
One key strategy to prevent technical debt is thorough code review and quality assurance. Code review involves experienced developers examining the source code to identify potential issues, improve code readability, and ensure adherence to coding standards. It helps catch bugs, improve maintenance, and minimize the chances of introducing unintended tech debt into the system.
Continuous Integration / Automated Testing
Another essential practice is continuous integration and automated testing. Continuous integration involves frequently merging code changes into a shared repository, allowing developers to detect integration issues early. Autonomous testing, on the other hand, involves running tests automatically to verify the quality of the code. By automating the testing process, developers can identify bugs and issues promptly, reducing the risk of technical debt accumulation.
Artificial intelligence can be used to transform automation testing by improving efficiency, accuracy, and speed. A team that leverages AI for automation testing can streamline the testing process and run without human intervention – channeling valuable resources to higher-level strategic activities.
Documentation
Comprehensive documentation aids technical teams in knowledge transfer and maintenance, reducing the risk of technical debt from clear or misunderstood code. Good documentation will also alert teams to interdependencies that may not be readily apparent, so when changes are made, the knock-on effects of those changes can be accurately measured. Well-documented code and system architecture provides future developers with a clear understanding of how things work, preventing shortcuts or mistakes that may lead to long-term technical debt accumulation.
Modular Design
Trading in monolithic, cumbersome systems for flexible, modular frameworks allows individual components to be updated, tested, and maintained independently. This approach reduces the risk of entangled code, makes it easier to implement changes, and helps prevent unplanned tech debt when new features or fixes are required.
Track & Manage Dependencies
Managing dependencies and performing regular updates prevents outdated libraries or frameworks from becoming liabilities. Staying up-to-date with dependency versions reduces security risks and compatibility issues that might otherwise turn into significant tech debt.
Realistic Deadlines
One of the best ways to prevent technical debt is to set realistic deadlines for software projects whenever possible. If most deadlines are realistic, then regular development activities won’t compound the tech debt incurred during the occasional emergency when protocols must be circumvented to solve an urgent problem.
Implementing all of these recommended practices may not be feasible at every organization – but keeping them in mind will help teams keep tech debt manageable, maintain code quality, and help ensure long-term project sustainability.
Measuring and Communicating Technical Debt
To realistically identify and manage technical debt, it is critical for organizations to effectively measure and communicate the existence, extent, and effect of tech debt on company systems and applications.
A key aspect of measuring technical debt is using metrics and tools to provide a quantitative assessment of tech debt. These metrics may include:
- Code complexity
- Code duplication
- Code coverage
- Code churn
Tracking these metrics over time helps an organization identify areas of high technical debt and prioritize tech debt remediation activities.
Several tools are available in the market that facilitate the evaluation of tech debt. These tools provide detailed reports, visualizations, and dashboards that help stakeholders understand the current state of technical debt in a project. Some popular tools include SonarQube, CAST, and CodeClimate.
Effectively communicating technical debt to stakeholders is essential to ensure the necessary company support for remediation activities. Clear, concise, regular communication using non-technical language is important to engage stakeholders, including those at the executive level, who may not have a deep technical background.
Consider presenting tech debt in terms of potential risks, increased maintenance costs, and lower productivity. This can help to clarify the need for resource investment to a non-technical, business-focused audience.
Incorporating tech debt into project planning is vital to prevent the unrecognized accumulation of tech debt and to manage it proactively. An organization that considers tech debt during project estimation and planning is one that can allocate resources and time to address it before it becomes a problem.
This involves identifying potential sources of tech debt, estimating their impact, and including necessary tasks for debt reduction in the project plan.
Overcoming Tech Debt Challenges
Technical debt is common in organizations of all sizes and industries. It refers to the accumulated costs of shortcuts, temporary solutions, and suboptimal code that can hinder future operations, integrations, and development activities.
Organizations looking to overcome the challenges of technical debt may want to consider the following:
Balancing remediation with updates
Finding the right balance between new features and tech debt remediation is essential. It may be tempting to prioritize new features to meet the demands of internal and external stakeholders. However, neglecting remediation can lead to increased system complexity, decreasing efficiency over time. It is important to allocate dedicated time and resources to tackle technical debt alongside the development of new features.
Aligning stakeholders
Tech debt can have a significant impact on a variety of stakeholders, including:
- Developers
- Product owners
- End users
- Project managers
- Customers
- Executives
It is crucial for all relevant parties to be aligned on the priorities of eliminating tech debt. By fostering collaboration and open communication (and getting buy-in from the start), you can better understand the real, company-wide impact of tech debt and access the resources needed to prioritize and resolve it.
Commit to a long-term strategy
While it is rarely possible to eliminate tech debt entirely, committing to a long-term strategy of technical debt assessment and remediation can help to mitigate any negative impact. That means making plans to regularly review and refactor code, invest in automated testing and continuous integration, and adopt agile development practices.
By taking a proactive approach and prioritizing technical debt reduction, you can ensure that your applications and networks are more stable, resilient, and reliable and set the foundation for a successful future.
Vervint is launching a new offering helping clients understand and quantify the technical debt they face in a way that puts people and experiences at the center of the evaluation, not simply the cost of running an IT infrastructure. We look forward to helping you overcome your challenges and face the future without the burden of tech debt.
Embrace Innovation with Vervint
We meet people and organizations where they’re at to take them where they want to be. Get in touch, and we’ll help move you toward a more innovative future.