Non-technical precursors of non-strategic technical debt

Last updated on April 29th, 2018 at 06:36 am

Non-strategic technical debt is technical debt that appears in the asset without strategic purpose. We tend to introduce non-strategic technical debt by accident, or as the result of urgency, or from changes in standards, laws, or regulations—almost any source other than asset-related engineering purposes. In this group of posts I examine a variety of precursors of non-strategic technical debt that are not directly related to technology. Sources of these precursors include:

• Communication between and among people
• Organizational policies relating to job assignments
• Cognitive biases [Kahneman 2011]
• Performance management policy
• Incentive structures
• Organizational structures
• Contract language
• Outsourcing
• …and approaches to dealing with budget depletion.

McConnell has classified technical debt in a framework that distinguishes responsible forms of technical debt from other forms [McConnell 2008]. Briefly, we incur some technical debt strategically and responsibly, and we retire it when the time is right. We incur other technical debt for other reasons, some of which are inconsistent with enterprise health and wellbeing.

The distinction is lost on many. Unfortunately, most technical debt is non-strategic. We would have been better off  if we had never created it. Or if we had retired it almost immediately. In any case we should have retired it long ago.

It’s this category of non-strategic technical debt that I deal with in this group of posts. Although all technical debt is unwelcome, we’re especially interested in non-strategic technical debt, because it is usually uncontrolled. In these posts I explore the non-technical mechanisms that lead to formation of non-strategic technical debt. Schedule pressure is one exception. Because it’s so important, it deserves a thread of its own. I’ll address it later.

Common precursors of non-strategic technical debt

Here are some of the more common precursors of non-strategic technical debt.

• Failure to communicate the technical debt concept
• Failure to communicate long-term business strategy
• Technological communication risk
• Team composition volatility
• The Dunning-Kruger effect can lead to technical debt
• Unrealistic definition of done
• Self-sustaining technical knowledge deficits during contract negotiations
• How performance management systems can contribute to technical debt
• Zero tolerance and work-to-rule deliveries create an adversarial culture
• Stovepiping can lead to technical debt
• Separating responsibility for maintenance and acquisition
• The fundamental attribution error
• Feature bias: unbalanced concern for capability vs. sustainability
• Unrealistic optimism: the planning fallacy and the n-person prisoner’s dilemma
• Confirmation bias and technical debt
• How outsourcing leads to increasing technical debt
• How budget depletion leads to technical debt
• Contract restrictions can lead to technical debt
• Organizational psychopathy: career advancement by surfing the debt tsunami
• The Tragedy of the Commons is a distraction
• The Broken Windows theory of technical debt is broken
• Malfeasance can be a source of technical debt

I’ll be adding posts on these topics, so check back often, or subscribe to receive notifications when they’re available.

References

[Kahneman 2011] Daniel Kahneman. Thinking, Fast and Slow. New York: Macmillan, 2011.

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• Unrealistic optimism: the planning fallacy and the n-person prisoner’s dilemma
• Confirmation bias and technical debt
• The trap of elegantly stated goals

[McConnell 2008] Steve McConnell. Managing Technical Debt, white paper, Construx Software, 2008.

Available: here; Retrieved November 10, 2017.

• Nontechnical precursors of nonstrategic technical debt
• How performance management systems can contribute to technical debt

[McCullough 1972] David McCullough. The Great Bridge: The epic story of the building of the Brooklyn Bridge. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972.

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• Non-technical precursors of non-strategic technical debt

[Talbot 2011] J. Talbot. “The Brooklyn Bridge: First Steel-Wire Suspension Bridge.” Modern Steel Construction 51:6, 42-46, 2011.

Available: here; Retrieved: December 20, 2017.

• Nontechnical precursors of nonstrategic technical debt

Related posts

• Malfeasance can be a source of technical debt
  Although deploying technical debt management policies is necessary, it might not be sufficient. Malfeasance can lead to incurring new technical debt. It can prevent retiring—or even identifying—existing technical debt. Correcting, detecting, and preventing malfeasance must be goals of technical debt management policy.
• The Broken Windows theory of technical debt is broken
  Because there is no known controlled study providing evidence that supports the application of the Broken Windows theory to technical debt management, Broken Windows as applied to technical debt management must be regarded as an intriguing conjecture awaiting scientific examination.
• The Tragedy of the Commons is a distraction
  The urge to control technical debt by designating one group as the “owner” of the asset doesn’t avoid the tragedy of the commons. It leads inevitably to duplication and more technical debt. A more effective approach: Communities that share specific assets must devise customs, rules, and sanctions for managing them.
• Organizational psychopathy: career advancement by surfing the debt tsunami
  Organizational psychopathy can be the dominant contributing factor in generating technical debt when the primary beneficiary of a decision is the decision-maker or the advocate, and when he or she intends to move on to employment elsewhere before the true cost of the debt becomes evident.
• Contract restrictions can lead to technical debt
  Contract restrictions can lead to technical debt. When contractor organizations customize an asset they own for customers, they usually mean to retain ownership of the asset. But segregating the asset from the customizations can lead to technical debt. Here's how.