Technical Debt

What is technical debt?

Technical debt results from relying on a short-term solution to a problem at the expense of efficiency in the long run. Its prime drivers are procrastinating, ignoring permanent solutions, or rushing to meet deadlines. 

Ignored issues grow into bigger and more complicated problems that require re-engineering or larger technical efforts than planned. Technical debt can be as small as fixing a bug in a code or as big as transferring information technology (IT) architecture from legacy systems to modern technology. For example, any unaddressed code or architecture issue accumulates technical debt for engineers in the subsequent iteration. 

To prevent this, many technology teams use static code analysis software to find bugs that might add to technical debt.

Types of technical debts

Engineers classify technical debts into two major types. Deliberate technical debt results from consciously not addressing an issue to meet tight deadlines. On the other hand, inadvertent technical debt results from carelessness or simply a lack of awareness. 

This classification goes deeper to list four different categories of technical debt. 

• Deliberate prudent technical debt refers to purposely accumulating debt because a company has decided to solve known issues in the future and focus on delivering output. This situation is acceptable if the debt is small and the expected outcome value outweighs debt repayment resources.
• Deliberate reckless technical debt builds when a team intentionally opts for short-term solutions to achieve its end goal by ignoring technical debt indicators, resulting in more complicated issues in the future. 
• Inadvertent prudent technical debt happens when a business implements the best possible solution available at the time, only to discover errors post-release. This is due to the fast-paced, dynamic nature of rapid innovations. 
• Inadvertent reckless technical debt is the result of putting a solution into place without realizing its negative impact and consequences. Lack of experience, carelessness, and ignorance of best practices are the main reasons that contribute to inadvertent technical debts.

Technical debt advantages

Technical debt is not always a bad thing. Sometimes, an occasional trade-off between time and quality becomes indispensable for development teams. It only becomes a concern when engineers ignore incurred debt or are unaware of it. 

Surprisingly, a new stream of thought sees technical debt not as a problem but as an opportunity. Proactive monitoring, tracking, and management of technical debt help people evade future catastrophes and get an edge over their competitors. 

Technical debt is helpful in specific critical scenarios that can make or break a business. These include:

• Early delivery of minimum viable product (MVP) solutions.
• Proof-of-concept confirmation.
• Identification and development of a  product or market fit.
• Faster collection of important feedback.
• Quick fulfillment of customer needs.

A well-thought decision to take on debt with the availability of enough resources and knowledge to repay in a timely way makes debts essential and beneficial.

Technical debt causes

Companies choose to accumulate technical debt for four main reasons.

• High pressure to meet deadlines. Businesses can pressure engineers to release within tight or unreasonable deadlines or with a low budget.
• Context switches. These result from shifting project focus during the development due to outdated technology or a change of plans. 
• Development causes. Insufficient resources, poor documentation, a lack of testing, sub-optimal coding, or outdated technologies are just some ways development leads to debt. 
• Human error. They result from a lack of motivation, experience, or communication.

Best practices to reduce technical debts

No fixed templates or frameworks of strategies for reducing technical debt will work for every business. Something that worked for an early-stage startup might not suit a corporate setup. 

However, a few best practices can minimize technical debts.

• Avoid creating new debts. Cut down on creating new debts and monitor existing technical debts. They should be paid off efficiently and regularly.

• Track and document. Regular documentation of all debts across all development cycles helps identify areas that require efforts to fix buggy codes. 
• Hire skilled engineers. The right developers will make sure code quality stays uncompromised. 
• Automate testing. Use automated software testing tools to maintain the high quality of code. 
• Create a technical debt team. Build a department to evaluate current technical debts and the feasibility of getting into debt for future opportunities. The team should be the sole authority to make decisions based on their findings.

Technical debt vs. technical investment

In software engineering, technical debt is a tool for discussing trade-offs. It requires users to build something quickly that will be more difficult to maintain down the line. Over time, it costs more to maintain the sloppy infrastructure or code than it would have if it had been built correctly from the start. 

Technical investment is the opposite of technical debt. By making technical investments, users can slow down now and accelerate later. Although it takes a while for teams to get used to the new tool, they will eventually be more productive.

Learn more about static code analysis to identify code errors before execution.