Introduction
Technical debt refers to the implied cost of code or system deficiencies that accumulate over time as developers take shortcuts or make quick fixes to move faster. This debt eventually comes due in the form of low productivity, headaches, and major maintenance costs down the road. Left unaddressed, technical debt can grind engineering organizations to a halt.
Research from revealed that developers spend 13.5 hours a week specifically addressing technical debt. That equates to one-third of their work week.
Causes Of Technical Debt
Despite best intentions, I am sure we have been in a position where in an effort to release features faster or hit tight deadlines, developers may feel they have to sacrifice best practices such as writing clean, well-structured code, implementing robust testing and maintaining up-to-date documentation, etc.
In the short-term these trade-offs seems worthwhile, they can easily lead to compounded metaphorical pain in future development cycles. And while it is likely the items in the list below only touch the surface, some common root causes of technical debt include:
Developers new to a codebase or system make suboptimal modifications without fully grasping the architecture.
Skipping testing results in undetected bugs and defects that become exponentially harder to fix later.
Copying and pasting code fragments instead of creating reusable modules or libraries adds cruft. Whether this is for individual functions or entire units (files), this just adds unnecessary code to source code repositories.
Resolving issues with simple one-off tweaks. An example of this might be increasing the size of a field in a database without considering the larger picture where else that field might be used.
Consequences of Technical Debt
When left unaddressed for an extended period, technical debt can jeopardize the entire project. To draw a parallel, think of it as an unstable situation ready to collapse, much like an inflating bubble. The accumulating consequences of taking shortcuts in the early stages create vulnerabilities throughout the system, and these issues grow exponentially over time. Eventually, the efforts needed to maintain the struggling software consume resources that could be used for new development. The cost can be seen in:
Simple changes require untangling layers of patchy code first, delaying new capabilities and reducing agility.
Excess effort is (required and) wasted just trying to comprehend legacy systems vs building value, increasing costs.
Fragile code contains undiscovered defects that lead to disruptive, hard-to-diagnose failures down the line causing more bugs.
Frustrated developers quit, resulting in critical expertise and institutional knowledge drain and loss of talent.
Seemingly trivial upgrades turn into months-long death march projects, destroying morale.
The system becomes virtually unworkable, requiring risky, enormously expensive ground-up rewrites leading to legacy system paralysis.
Strategies for Paying Down Technical Debt
The key is establishing ongoing, incremental processes for correcting technical debt issues. Consider implementing various strategies to manage technical debt effectively. These include enforcing coding standards and testing requirements during code reviews, allocating dedicated time for addressing debt, creating a backlog with assigned points for planning consideration, automating tasks to minimize redundancy, and gradually refactoring legacy systems by replacing convoluted sections with cleaner designs.
Whatever strategies are used to address technical debt, executing them in practice poses difficulties. When dealing with legacy systems that consist if years of layered complexity, patched-together dependencies, and duplicated code that underpin key functionality, attempting to correct the debt may feed developer anxiety. The scale of vulnerabilities accumulated over time makes even basic refactoring feel precarious. In cases where engineered shortcuts perform business-critical operations, rearchitecting carries risk.
References
Nathan, S. (2023). App developers are spending too much time on upkeep. Retrieved from https://www.devprojournal.com/software-development-trends/app-developers-are-spending-too-much-time-on-upkeep/
How to Reduce Technical Debt — a Guide for CTOs. (2023) Retrieved from https://brainhub.eu/library/how-to-deal-with-technical-debt
What is technical debt?. (2023). Retrieved from https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/technical-debt#
Originally published at timcoatesinsights.wordpress.com on September 13, 2023.