Managing technical debt | Technical Debt for Policymakers

Last updated on August 24th, 2019 at 05:57 pm

Managing technical debt is something few organizations now do, and fewer do well. Several issues make managing technical debt difficult and they’re discussed elsewhere in this blog. This thread explores tactics for dealing with those issues from a variety of initial conditions. For example, tactics that work well for an organization that already has control of its technical debt, and which wants to keep it under control, might not work at all for an organization that’s just beginning to address a vast portfolio of runaway technical debt. The needs of these two organizations differ. The approaches they must take might then also differ.

A jumble of jigsaw puzzle pieces. Managing technical debt can be like solving a puzzle. — A jumble of jigsaw puzzle pieces. Where do we begin? With these puzzles, we usually begin with two assumptions: (a) we have all the pieces, and (b) they fit together to make coherent whole. These assumptions might not be valid for the puzzle of technical debt in any given organization.

The first three posts in this thread illustrate the differences among organization in different stages of developing technical debt management practices. In “Leverage points for technical debt management,” I begin to address the needs of strategists working in an organization just beginning to manage its technical debt, and asking the question, “Where do we begin?” In “Undercounting nonexistent debt items,” I offer an observation about a risk that accompanies most attempts to assess the volume of outstanding technical debt. Such assessments are frequently undertaken in organizations at early stages of the technical debt management effort. In “Crowdsourcing debt identification,” I discuss a method for maintaining the contents of a database of technical debt items. Data maintenance is something that might be undertaken in the context of a more advance technical debt management program.

Whatever approach is adopted, it must address factors that include technology, business objectives, politics, culture, psychology, and organizational behavior. So what you’ll find in this thread are insights, observations, and recommendations that address one or more of the issues related to these fields. “Demodularization can help control technical debt” considers mostly technical strategies. “Undercounting nonexistent debt items” is an exploration of a psychological phenomenon. “Leverage points for technical debt management” considers the organization as a system and discusses tactics for altering it. And “Legacy debt incurred intentionally” explores how existing technical debt can grow as long as it remains outstanding.

Accounting issues also play a role. “Metrics for technical debt management: the basics” is a basic discussion of measurement issues. “Accounting for technical debt” looks into the matter of accounting for technical debt financially. And “Three cognitive biases” is a study of how technical debt is affected by the way we think about it.

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