For newcomers to the technology business, the notion of technical debt often sounds like a cop-out, an excuse for a team to deliver an unfinished or buggy product. And one can’t blame them: there are plenty of software developers who hide behind the concept when a project goes astray.
But the same can be said of a mechanic who removes a bolt by hitting it with a hammer until it breaks. Much like a hammer isn’t at fault, but rather the unorthodox mechanic, technical debt as a tool isn’t to blame when a developer misuses it.
Technical debt as a concept was coined by Ward Cunningham, one of the 17 authors of the agile manifesto. As he originally envisioned it, technical debt works like financial debt: you borrow money that you don’t have so you can invest in something immediately, and, when you pay back that money you add an interest fee, something extra for the person who took the risk of giving you the loan.
Assess the Costs and Risks of Your Debt by Interacting With Your Clients
Information is key in decision making, so c level contact list understanding the nature and scope of your debt helps you prioritize which parts to solve first. Define your debt around the following metrics related to the user:
- Costs: What is your technical debt liable for? By cost, we understand the loss of an opportunity, monetary gain, or time efficiency. Depending on your client’s business each loss could have a different priority. A business could be bothered with a slow process, but in a medical environment, it could literally prove fatal. Know your client and their needs
- Risks: If costs are a loss, a risk is the possibility of a detrimental occurrence. What could happen if you don’t pay back your technical debt? Much like costs, risks can be prioritized according to the nature of your client’s business. A great example of a risk is a security vulnerability that leaves the software open for attacks.
Understanding the client’s business and having a constant interaction with end-users is a good habit for a project manager who is trying to define probable costs and risks. Some consequences can be assessed before deployment, but others will eventually come forth as the software gets used.
Define the Nature of Your Debt With the Help of Your Team
On the other hand, understanding difference between content writer and copywriter the nature of your debt can help you define a strategy. As a guideline, the Software Engineering Institute research team published a paper detailing 13 different kinds of debt, including:
- Architecture Debt
- Build Debt
- Code Debt
- Defect Debt
- Design Debt
- Documentation Debt
- Infrastructure Debt
- People Debt
- Process Debt
- Requirement Debt
- Service Debt
- Test Automation Debt
- Test Debt
Of course, it’s hard to clearly assess which debt takes precedence just by defining their nature. For that, it’s better to look at the costs and risks. Still, understanding where your debt lies helps you allocate resources efficiently and get a feel of what debts can be grouped together and solved in unison.
Team meetings, team sharing, and australia cell numbers review sessions can help your teams identify each other’s debts as well as help them categorize it. In fact, a fresh set of eyes can uncover debts that inadvertently made it to the project. It’s also good practice to remind your teams that debts aren’t the end of the world. We are all humans after all, so turn risks into opportunities.