Managing Technical Debt

Navigating the Maze: Understanding and Managing Technical Debt

In the fast-paced world of software development, speed is often king. We rush to meet deadlines, push out new features, and respond to market demands. But sometimes, in our haste, we take shortcuts. We opt for the quick fix over the robust solution, promising ourselves we'll "come back and clean it up later." This pattern of Get Stuff Done now and worrying about the consequences later is the origin story of Technical Debt.

It's a term many have heard, often whispered with a sigh or spoken with frustration. But what exactly is it? And is it always a bad thing? As architects and leaders, understanding technical debt is crucial for building sustainable, high-quality software.

Why Use the "Debt" Metaphor?

Coined by Ward Cunningham, one of the authors of the Agile Manifesto, the metaphor of "debt" is surprisingly apt. Consider financial debt: you might take out a loan (borrow money) to achieve a short-term goal faster, like buying a house. However, you pay interest on that loan until you have completed paying off the principal.

Technical debt works similarly:

• Borrowing: You "borrow" time by choosing an easier, faster, but perhaps less ideal technical solution now.
• Principal: The initial shortcut or suboptimal design choice.
• Interest: The extra effort required in the future due to that initial shortcut. This "interest" manifests as slower development, increased bugs, difficulty implementing new features, higher maintenance costs, and reduced team morale.

Just like financial debt, not all technical debt is created equal. Taking it on strategically can be beneficial.

The "Pros" of Technical Debt (Yes, Really!)

It sounds counter-intuitive, but intentionally incurring some technical debt can be a valid strategic decision, especially in the short term.

• Feature Velocity: The most common reason. A shortcut might allow you to ship a critical feature faster, meet a market window, or gather user feedback sooner. This speed can be a competitive advantage.
• Code Quality (Temporary Stability): Sometimes, a quick patch might stabilize a system temporarily or allow you to maintain perceived code quality for now, deferring a larger, riskier refactor until a more opportune moment. (Note: This is a nuanced point – the long-term effect is almost always adverse on quality, but the immediate goal might be perceived stability or hitting a quality gate for this release).

The key here is intentionality. Strategic debt is taken on consciously, with a plan to address it later. Accidental debt, born from sloppiness or lack of awareness, is far more dangerous.

The Cons: Cheating Your Future Self

While strategic debt has its place, unmanaged or excessive technical debt carries significant downsides. The "interest payments" start piling up, hindering progress and impacting the business.

Impact on Long-Term Thinking: The primary disadvantage is that technical debt mortgages the future. It makes long-term planning difficult because the codebase becomes increasingly complex and fragile. Simple changes become arduous tasks. Innovation slows as more time is spent firefighting or working around existing limitations. Software with many quick and dirty changes tends to exhibit the following symptoms.

• Slower feature development cycles
• Increased bug rates and system instability
• Difficulty onboarding new developers
• Lowered team morale due to constant friction
• Increased risk during deployments or changes

If you are experiencing any or all of these phenomena, it is time to start planning to pay down your tech debt.

Solutions: Managing and Repaying Technical Debt

Ignoring technical debt isn't an option if you want a healthy, evolving system. Fortunately, there are several approaches to managing and paying it down:

Bespoke / Custom Approach:

• Description: Engineering managers listen to their developers when asked why they are not meeting their commitments. They respond by complaining about how "crufty" the code is. They may also use the term "code smells." The managers ask for a plan to refactor or rewrite the code, reducing its complexity, and then negotiate with product managers to get that work on the roadmap.
• Advantage: This is, by far, the most common and natural approach.
• Disadvantages: This approach is the least predictive and undermines executive confidence in engineering management. It can be ad-hoc, lack clear metrics, and vary significantly in effectiveness depending on team discipline. By the time the developers complain, you probably already amassed considerable tech debt.

Google SRE (Error Budgets) Approach:

• Description: This model links feature development velocity directly to system reliability. Teams define Service Level Objectives (SLOs). Teams can focus on features if the system stays reliable (within its "error budget"). Once there have been too many outages, the development focus must shift to stability and addressing the underlying issues (often tech debt).
• Advantage: It's systematic and data-driven, creating a clear feedback loop.
• Disadvantage: This can lead to high conflict between development (wanting features) and SRE/Ops (guarding stability). Feature velocity can also become unpredictable, halting abruptly when the error budget is depleted.

TCP (Technology Capability Plan):

• Description: This is a community-based proactive approach to identifying, prioritizing, and planning technical debt management. For a more elaborate description, see this article, which also describes different flavors of technical debt and how to deal with them.
• Advantage: Creates predictable progress on debt reduction and fosters low conflict as the allocation is agreed upon upfront.
• Disadvantage: Requires trust from product owners and management that the allocated time is necessary and being used effectively. It might also feel too slow if the debt burden is very high.

Conclusion: Be a Conscious Debtor

Technical debt is an inherent part of software development. It's not inherently evil, but it demands conscious management. Like financial debt, it can be a helpful tool when used strategically, but it can cripple you if left unchecked.

The key is to:

1. Acknowledge its existence.
2. Make informed decisions about when to incur it.
3. Track it actively.
4. Implement a consistent strategy for paying it down.

By understanding the pros, cons, and available management strategies, you can navigate the complexities of technical debt and build software systems that are functional today, adaptable, and maintainable for the future.

After reading this blog, I hope you feel more equipped to identify and deal with technical debt. If you are experiencing the symptoms of tech debt but still feel like you could use some help, I can assist.