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According to statistics, over five years, costs due to technical debt for one million lines of code can reach $1.5 million (equivalent to 27,500 developer hours). On top of this, technical debt issues become increasingly complex and burdensome when left unaddressed, impacting overall software quality.
In this blog post, we'll look at what technical debt is, how it occurs, and technical debt best practices.
What Is Technical Debt?
The technical debt concept describes the phenomenon where developers choose a simpler or faster solution over a better, longer-term one.
It metaphorically means the cost of future changes or rework associated with incorrect or poor decisions made during the development of a software product. This is an analogy to financial debt: when you take out a loan with favorable terms for a short period, but in the end you have to pay back much more money due to accumulated interest.
How Can Technical Debt Arise?
Technical debt arises when software development teams take shortcuts or make trade-offs that favor immediate progress over long-term stability, maintainability, or scalability. These shortcuts often result in suboptimal code or design choices that need to be addressed later, similar to financial debt that must be paid back with interest.
Concerning these reasons, you can apply different approaches to managing tech debt.
Types of Technical Debt
Technical debt can be categorized into two types:
- Intentional Technical Debt: Also known as deliberate or active debt, this occurs when the team consciously postpones resolving certain issues to achieve a specific goal, such as releasing an update more quickly.
- Unintentional Technical Debt: Also referred to as accidental, outdated, or passive debt, this arises when the team unknowingly performs subpar work, accumulating issues over time without realizing it.
The impact of technical debt on your project depends on the way of managing tech debt. Just as borrowing money can help you achieve goals sooner, taking coding shortcuts can initially provide the necessary time and resources to address more urgent software development tasks. However, tech debt management is crucial to avoid long-term negative consequences.
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Intentional Technical Debt Strategy
Intentional technical debt is a strategic approach where a development team deliberately takes shortcuts or defers certain improvements to achieve immediate objectives. This strategy is employed with a clear understanding of the trade-offs involved and typically includes a plan to address the debt in the future.
Checklist for an Effective Intentional Technical Debt Strategy
- Define the specific goals that necessitate taking on technical debt, such as meeting a critical deadline, launching a product to market faster, or prioritizing feature development over code quality in the short term.
- Evaluate the potential impact of the technical debt on future development, maintenance, and scalability. Identify which areas of the codebase or system can tolerate the shortcuts without causing significant issues.
- Thoroughly document the decisions made, including the reasons for taking on the debt, the areas affected, and the potential consequences. This documentation ensures that future teams understand the context and rationale behind the choices.
- Develop a roadmap for addressing the technical debt, including specific tasks, timelines, and resource allocation. This plan should be integrated into the overall project timeline to ensure that debt repayment is not indefinitely postponed.
- Regularly assess the state of the technical debt and its impact on the project. Use metrics and feedback loops to monitor how the debt affects performance, quality, and team productivity.
These technical debt best practices presented in a checklist will help you control and manage your efforts in faster product development and release, as well as intentional technical debt strategy,
How To Manage Technical Debt
Technical debt in software development is viewed differently by developers and businesses. Developers see it as a crucial part of their work that requires dedicated time and effort. However, businesses often ignore the issue of how to handle technical debt. They perceive it as an inefficient use of resources. Consequently, managing technical debt in an organized and consistent way is a tricky task.
If the tech debt exists, its complete elimination is almost impossible. However, you can apply technical debt reduction strategies.
Technical debt reduction strategies are crucial for maintaining a healthy, efficient, and scalable software development process. By proactively addressing technical debt, teams can improve code quality, reduce the risk of bugs, and enhance system performance.
We’ve prepared technical debt best practices so that you can eliminate the negative consequences of unintentional technical debt:
1. Initiate Code Reviews and Peer Programming
Implement regular code reviews and pair programming sessions. These practices ensure that code quality is maintained and potential issues are caught early by multiple sets of eyes. They also foster a culture of knowledge sharing and adherence to best practices.
2. Automate Testing
Establish a robust automated testing framework, including unit tests, integration tests, and end-to-end tests. Automated tests help catch bugs and regressions early, reducing the likelihood of accumulating technical debt. Make testing an integral part of the development process.
3. Conduct Refactoring
Schedule regular refactoring sessions to clean up and improve existing code for technical debt management. Refactoring helps eliminate inefficient or outdated code and enhances the overall structure and readability of the codebase. Prioritize refactoring tasks based on areas that are frequently modified or prone to issues.
4. Maintain Comprehensive Documentation
Maintain thorough and up-to-date documentation for the codebase. This way of managing tech debt helps new team members understand the system more quickly and reduces the risk of introducing unintentional technical debt. Document code design, architecture, APIs, and any known issues or limitations.
5. Ensure Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD)
Implement CI/CD pipelines to automate the building, testing, and deployment of code. CI/CD practices ensure that code changes are continuously tested and integrated, reducing the risk of technical debt accumulating from untested or improperly integrated code.
6. Establish Technical Debt Backlog
Create a technical debt backlog to track and prioritize known issues. For efficient technical debt management, regularly review and update this backlog, integrating technical debt tasks into the overall project planning and sprint cycles. Treat technical debt items with the same importance as new features or bug fixes.
7. Ensure Training and Skill Development
How to handle technical debt in your team’s perception? Invest in ongoing training and professional development for the development team. Encourage attendance at workshops, conferences, and online courses to keep up with the latest industry standards, tools, and best practices. A well-informed team is less likely to introduce unintentional technical debt.
8. Monitor Quality Metrics
Implement tools and processes to measure code quality and monitor technical debt. Use metrics such as code complexity, code coverage, and defect density to assess the health of the codebase. Regularly review these metrics to identify areas that need improvement.
9. Foster a Culture of Quality
Promote a culture where code quality is valued and prioritized. Encourage developers to take ownership of their code and strive for excellence. Recognize and reward efforts to reduce technical debt and improve code quality.
10. Manage Feedback Loops
Establish feedback loops with stakeholders, including developers, testers, and end-users. Collect feedback on the system's performance, usability, and maintainability. Use this feedback to identify and address areas of unintentional technical debt.
Conclusion
Dealing with technical debt is a systematic long game. It is designed to prevent development teams from losing productivity over time. How to manage technical debt? As you can see, effective tech debt management requires regular code reviews, automated testing, and a proactive approach to refactoring and documentation.
Businesses must recognize that support costs will rise as the system evolves, and the greater the technical debt, the more challenging and expensive it will be to develop new features and fix existing issues. Effective tech debt management requires planning, clear regulations, and a shared understanding among all stakeholders.
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