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Who are the policymakers?

Last updated on June 12th, 2021 at 02:20 pm

Organizational policy is the framework of principles that guide policymakers, decision makers, and everyone in the organization as they carry out their responsibilities. As I use the term in this blog, a policymaker is someone who’s responsible for developing, revising, or approving organizational policies. The group of policymakers also includes those who contribute to the policy development process at the content level.

Some organizational policies that don’t mention technical debt explicitly can affect the way the organization manages technical debt. For this reason, all policymakers potentially affect to technical debt management. See, for example, “Performance management systems and technical debt.” And this creates problems for organizations as they confront the problem of controlling the formation of technical debt.

The problem is that many policymakers are unaware that their work affects the rate of formation of technical debt. Many would deny it, some vociferously. Programs for managing technical debt must address the problem of educating policymakers as to their role in technical debt formation.

That’s why in this blog I try to address the needs of all policymakers relative to the effects of their decisions on technical debt management. You’ll find relatively little technical content here. But you’ll also find here find discussions of behaviors, biases, and organizational structures that aren’t usually present in discussions of technical debt management.

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  • What is policy?
    Policy is one of those concepts that we rarely define explicitly because we believe we all agree on what it means. But in this context, we must take some care to be certain that we do in fact agree. In this blog, policy is the set of general guidelines people follow when making decisions and taking action.
  • A policymaker’s definition of technical debt
    The policymaker's definition of technical debt is neutral relative to its causes and manifestations. Its focus is what technical debt costs if we leave it in place, what advantages it offers, and what we would need to do if we decide to retire it.
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Case 3: Help desk operations

Last updated on July 7th, 2021 at 10:32 am

This case illustrates how a decision to incur technical debt in one part of an organization can burden others with the metaphorical interest charges (MICs) on that debt. To gain effective control of technical debt, hold accountable those who make the decisions that lead to incurring new debt.

Background

A tech support person at workDuring the troubles following release of UGI’s StrawIntoGold 1.0 product, the Help Desk operated by UGI’s Customer Service Department was inundated with calls. Customer Service alerted Engineering. Engineering provided an explanation and an estimated repair date to pass on to callers. But neither Engineering management nor Customer Service management provided a script for the representatives. Consequently, calls took approximately 15% longer to handle than they would have if with a script. Further, the message conveyed to customers wasn’t always clear or consistent. That resulted in some customers calling repeatedly with the same issue.

Discussion

We can view as incurring a technical debt the decision not to provide customer service representatives with a script. We can view as the metaphorical interest charges the extra time handling calls, the extra calls, and even a few lost customers. Because of the singular nature of this incident, it’s doubtful that anyone will write a script. But if someone were to do so, the cost of writing it, distributing it, and training all customer service representatives would be the metaphorical principal of this technical debt.

The policymaker’s perspective

UGI doesn’t have a means of holding accountable those who incurred the debt. In this case, the Customer Service function incurs additional expenses because Engineering and Customer Service elected not to develop a script.

Other components of the metaphorical interest charges include the total of lost sales, damage to UGI’s reputation, and possible loss of market share. Marketing could have stepped in to assist with limiting that damage. But because they viewed the problem as technical, they didn’t participate. A whole-enterprise perspective on managing the technical debt might have led to a collaboration among Engineering, Marketing, and Customer Service. That collaboration could help build better relationships with the customers who were affected by the incident.

Accounting properly for the MICs associated with technical debt can lead to a better understanding of its effects.

Related posts

  • Case 2: New software Development
    This case illustrates the importance of recognizing as technical debt any artifact whose condition or absence contributes to a loss of organizational effectiveness or agility. It describes a situation related to software development, and which some would argue isn’t actually technical debt.
  • Case 1: A platform upgrade
    This case involves deferring a platform upgrade for SharePoint sites. It illustrates the importance of the policymaker’s view of technical debt, as compared to the view that restricts technical debt to the engineering or IT functions.
  • Technical debt in the highway system
    Here’s an example of using the technical debt metaphor in civil engineering. In this case, it helps us understand why, in some cases, leaving some technical debt in place can be a better choice than retiring it.
  • Technical debt in a rail system
    Here’s an example of using the technical debt metaphor to think about how elements of a hardware asset can limit the ability of the enterprise to attain and maintain market leadership. The asset in this example is the trackbed of Amtrak’s Acela Express.
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Case 2: New software Development

Last updated on July 7th, 2021 at 10:30 am

This case illustrates the importance of recognizing as technical debt any artifact whose condition or absence contributes to a loss of organizational effectiveness or agility. It describes a situation related to software development, and which some would argue isn’t actually technical debt.

Background

A typical smartphoneGrowth has been unbelievable at Unbelievable Growth, Inc., (UGI). One reason why is the recent release of their app for Android and iPhone. The new app is StrawIntoGold 1.0. The app has an uncanny ability to predict the price movement of any common stock over the next 60 seconds. Some users had complained about the unresponsiveness of the user interface in release 1.0, which caused them to miss the 60-second window.

Engineering did some quick work and shipped StrawIntoGold 1.1 to fix the problem. In their haste, they were unable to automate all testing. So UGI hired 17 interns just for that release. The interns performed some critical tests manually to ensure that the problem had been fixed. Although those manual tests are still manual, and although UGI has laid off the interns, work on StrawIntoGold 2.0 has begun. The engineers working on StrawIntoGold 2.0 are doing their own tests manually, which is reducing their productivity considerably. Release 2.0 is now three months late, so far, and the projected ship date is at least three months from now.

Discussion

We can regard the decision to ship release 1.1 without automating tests as incurring a technical debt. That debt consists of the tests that weren’t automated. Until UGI retires that debt, it will incur something analogous to interest charges, as reduced engineering productivity. They raise production costs for the next release. They also delay the revenue projected for StrawIntoGold 2.0. That causes a loss of revenue, which is another contribution to metaphorical interest charges. The metaphorical principal of the technical debt imcludes the cost of implementing the automated tests. It also includes documentation and training for the engineers who will be using them.

The policymaker’s perspective

Some conventional views of technical debt don’t regard the missing test automation facilities as technical debt, because they aren’t part of the product. For example, Kruchten, et. al. [Kruchten 2013], take the definition of technical debt to be restricted to items characterized as “direct system characteristics.”

But even among those who regard the missing tests as technical debt, and the depressed engineering productivity as a metaphorical interest charge, some would not regard the delayed revenue as a metaphorical interest charge.

From the policymaker’s perspective, any loss of organizational effectiveness attributable to the condition or absence of a technological artifact is potentially a metaphorical interest charge arising from the technical debt associated with that artifact.

Allocating resources to technical debt management is difficult for organizations unless they know the full costs associated with carrying technical debt.

References

[Kruchten 2013] Philippe Kruchten, Robert L. Nord, Ipek Ozkaya, and D. Falessi, “Technical debt: towards a crisper definition report on the 4th international workshop on managing technical debt.” ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes, 38:5, 51-54, 2013.

Includes a comment that testing debt is not technical debt. Includes a comment that technical debt is result of quick and dirty work.

Cited in:

Related posts

  • Case 3: Help desk operations
    This case illustrates how a decision to incur technical debt in one part of an organization can burden other parts of the organization with the metaphorical interest charges on that debt. To gain effective control of technical debt, it’s probably necessary to hold accountable those who make the decisions that lead to incurring new debt.
  • Case 1: A platform upgrade
    This case involves deferring a platform upgrade for SharePoint sites. It illustrates the importance of the policymaker’s view of technical debt, as compared to the view that restricts technical debt to the engineering or IT functions.
  • Technical debt in the highway system
    Here’s an example of using the technical debt metaphor in civil engineering. In this case, it helps us understand why, in some cases, leaving some technical debt in place can be a better choice than retiring it.
  • Technical debt in a rail system
    Here’s an example of using the technical debt metaphor to think about how elements of a hardware asset can limit the ability of the enterprise to attain and maintain market leadership. The asset in this example is the trackbed of Amtrak’s Acela Express.
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Case 1: A platform upgrade

Last updated on July 18th, 2021 at 07:13 pm

This case involves deferring a platform upgrade for SharePoint sites. It illustrates the importance of the policymaker’s view of technical debt, as compared to the view that restricts technical debt to the engineering or IT functions.

Background
File servers in a rack
File servers in a rack. Photo (cc) Abigor courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Growth at the fictional company Unbelievable Growth, Inc., (UGI) has been so unbelievable that there is now a shortage of financial resources. Resources are especially tight for migrating the last groups of SharePoint users from SharePoint 2010 to SharePoint 2013. Consequently, the CFO instructed IT to continue to support SharePoint 2010 for at least two more quarters. Meanwhile, the affected SharePoint users must continue to use SharePoint 2010. Someday, currently set for two quarters from now, IT and the users of SharePoint 2010 will migrate to SharePoint 2013. Both IT and the users might need to expend resources to keep the SharePoint 2010 site operational. Users who make enhancements to their SharePoint 2010 sites will migrate that work to the SharePoint 2013 site. Unfortunately, that might require some rework that would have been unnecessary if the migration had not been deferred.

Discussion

We can regard as a debt UGI’s decision to defer the SharePoint migration. Because it isn’t a financial obligation, we call it a technical debt. UGI must retire that technical debt two quarters from now, when they finally execute the migration from SharePoint 2010 to SharePoint 2013. We can regard the cost of the final migration as the (metaphorical) principal of the technical debt. In the meantime, IT and the users must do some work that might have been unnecessary if they could have performed the migration now. We can regard that extra work as the (metaphorical) interest charges on that technical debt.

The policymaker’s perspective

Some—indeed most—conventional views of technical debt do not regard the deferred upgrade as technical debt, for various reasons—it isn’t software, or it isn’t in a product, or it isn’t a shortcut taken for expedience, and so on. Moreover, the person who made the decision to take on the debt was the CFO, who isn’t an engineer, and who might not even realize that the implications of the decision result in taking on technical debt.

But from the viewpoint of the policymaker, the commitment to execute the upgrade in the future is equivalent to accepting a technical obligation. For the enterprise, it’s a technical debt. Following UGI’s current accounting procedures, the SharePoint users and IT will pay the metaphorical interest on that technical debt. It will appear as an operating expense for those groups. That’s unfortunate, because the purpose of deferring the upgrade was unrelated to their operations. It was an enterprise cost-leveling maneuver. As such, the enterprise should probably account for the costs at the enterprise level to ensure accurate representation of the operational costs for the SharePoint users and for IT, and to accurately represent the CFO’s operations.

Non-technical decisions, occurring anywhere in the enterprise, can sometimes lead to incurring technical debt. Enterprise policy intended to support effective technical debt management must take these phenomena into account.

References

[Kruchten 2013] Philippe Kruchten, Robert L. Nord, Ipek Ozkaya, and D. Falessi, “Technical debt: towards a crisper definition report on the 4th international workshop on managing technical debt.” ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes, 38:5, 51-54, 2013.

Includes a comment that testing debt is not technical debt. Includes a comment that technical debt is result of quick and dirty work.

Cited in:

Related posts

  • Case 3: Help desk operations
    This case illustrates how a decision to incur technical debt in one part of an organization can burden other parts of the organization with the metaphorical interest charges on that debt. To gain effective control of technical debt, it’s probably necessary to hold accountable those who make the decisions that lead to incurring new debt.
  • Case 2: New software Development
    This case illustrates the importance of recognizing as technical debt any artifact whose condition or absence contributes to a loss of organizational effectiveness or agility. It describes a situation related to software development, and which some would argue isn’t actually technical debt.
  • Technical debt in the highway system
    Here’s an example of using the technical debt metaphor in civil engineering. In this case, it helps us understand why, in some cases, leaving some technical debt in place can be a better choice than retiring it.
  • Technical debt in a rail system
    Here’s an example of using the technical debt metaphor to think about how elements of a hardware asset can limit the ability of the enterprise to attain and maintain market leadership. The asset in this example is the trackbed of Amtrak’s Acela Express.
Posted on

Technical Debt: So What?

Last updated on July 8th, 2021 at 11:44 am

This post is for readers skeptical that technical debt is much of a problem. Some believe that technical debt is just the latest buzzword engineers use to justify budget and schedule overruns.

I have no knowledge of your specific situation, but technical debt is a real thing, and it probably affects your organization. Skepticism, though usually healthy, is unwise when it comes to technical debt. Here’s the short version:

If you produce or use technology in your organization, you’re probably carrying technical debt. It’s costing you real money, it’s slowing you down, and unless you address it, it will increase. Eventually it will take you out of the game.

A knight’s armor
A knight’s armor. To this day, in the United Kingdom, a law entitled ‘Statute Forbidding Bearing of Armour (1313)’ remains in effect. As bodies of legislation grow and evolve, they develop inconsistencies, and outmoded laws accumulate. They are the legislative equivalent of technical debt.
Technical debt makes systems more difficult to maintain, less cybersecure, more difficult to enhance, and more expensive to operate. This makes systems less effective in achieving organizational objectives. There is some disagreement about the definition of technical debt. But there’s broad agreement that the problem is growing rapidly [Fowler 2003]. If current trends continue or accelerate, someday soon many of our technology-based assets will become unmaintainable and cyber-indefensible. The people, enterprises, and governments that depend on those assets will be unable to adapt rapidly enough to changing markets, changing technologies, changing cyber-threats, and changing customer needs. If we are ever to gain effective control of technical debt, we must change organizational technology management policy.

Technical debt afflicts companies large and small

Technical debt afflicts organizations of all sizes. The massive problems—the ones that sometimes make the news—tend to belong to big corporations. For example, Google’s code base of “hundreds of millions” of lines of code once contained dependencies among its modules that were ungoverned (and ungovernable) [Morgenthaler 2012]. The sheer number of dependencies and the frequency of changes so slowed the development process that it affected Google’s operations. They dealt with this form of technical debt with three strategies: exploit automation, make it easy to do the right thing, and make it hard to do the wrong thing.

But small companies are also affected. Consider the fictitious company Alpha Properties LLC. Alpha manages condominium associations with fewer than 100 units. They provide excellent value to small clients by exploiting automation to keep their own operating expenses low. Many of their automation assets are implemented as Microsoft Excel macros. When Microsoft released Excel 2013, Alpha’s macros would have been affected. So they elected to incur technical debt by remaining in Excel 2010. However, mainstream support for Excel 2010 ended in October 2015, with extended support scheduled to end in October 2020. Alpha realizes that they must retire this debt well before that, but finding the resources to do it has been a challenge.

Technical debt exacts a high price

For non-engineers, especially policymakers, what exactly is the technical debt problem? It afflicts complex technological assets. That means almost anything humans can construct—highways, bridges, computers, satellites, software—anything. And that includes assets that have no physical manifestation, such as software, surgical procedures, and legislation. All these assets have associated bodies of knowledge, both of which evolve. When they do evolve, technical debt can arise. It can reside in the asset, in its associated body of knowledge, in the assets we use to interact with the asset, or all three.

We’re dealing with the consequences of technical debt when we’re aware of structures within or around an existing asset that can be improved, but we’ve deferred those improvements. Later, we find that making a change to an existing asset is so complicated and delicate that only a few experts can make the change. When they do, the cost of the effort is difficult to predict with useful precision, and there’s a significant probability of their failing multiple times before they finally succeed—if they ever do succeed. When we include all cost sources, costs can be high enough to rival or exceed the initial development cost of the asset, even when the changes in question seem relatively small.

Last words

Briefly, the technical debt problem is that as technological assets evolve, they can become increasingly difficult to maintain, defend, enhance, or extend. The difficulty can become so great that many owners of technological assets choose to begin anew rather than continue to operate the assets they have.

References

[Fowler 2003] Martin Fowler. “TechnicalDebt,” blog entry at MartinFowler.com, 1 October 2003.

Retrieved January 2, 2016, available at here; .

Cited in:

[Kruchten 2013] Philippe Kruchten, Robert L. Nord, Ipek Ozkaya, and D. Falessi, “Technical debt: towards a crisper definition report on the 4th international workshop on managing technical debt.” ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes, 38:5, 51-54, 2013.

Includes a comment that testing debt is not technical debt. Includes a comment that technical debt is result of quick and dirty work.

Cited in:

[Morgenthaler 2012] J. David Morgenthaler, Misha Gridnev, Raluca Sauciuc, and Sanjay Bhansali. “Searching for Build Debt: Experiences Managing Technical Debt at Google,” Proceedings of the Third International Workshop on Managing Technical Debt (MTD 2012), Piscataway, NJ: IEEE Press, 2012, 1-6.

Available: here; Retrieved: November 11, 2017

Cited in:
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References

Last updated on August 9th, 2023 at 01:10 am

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The Order from Amazon

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[Note a] Articles and blog entries about applying Broken Windows to managing technical debt in software:

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[Note b] Articles and blog entries questioning the validity of the Broken Windows theory of crime prevention:

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[Harcourt 2006b] Bernard E. Harcourt and Jens Ludwig. “Broken Windows: New Evidence From New York City and a Five-City Social Experiment,” University of Chicago Law Review, Vol. 73, 2006.

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[Nuwer 2013] Rachel Nuwer. “Sorry, Malcolm Gladwell: NYC’s Drop in Crime Not Due to Broken Window Theory,” SmartNews blog at smithsonian.com, February 6, 2013.

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