Last updated on May 25th, 2018 at 09:46 am
The behavior of internal customers and users of enterprise technological assets can contribute to technical debt formation and persistence. Because of these contributions, introducing effective technical debt management practices requires widespread behavioral changes on the part of those internal customers and users. Accepting these changes, and the initiative and creativity they require, is possible only if people understand the technical debt concept. When they do, they can appreciate the benefits of controlling technical debt, and the consequences of failing to control it. Similarly, when they do not understand or accept the technical debt concept, progress toward effective technical debt management is unlikely. Policymakers can contribute to the planning and execution of the required organizational transformation.
Even when the engineering teams are aware of the technical debt concept, and when they do try to manage technical debt, they cannot make much progress unless they have the support and understanding of their own management, their internal customers, and their customers’ managements. Everyone must understand that controlling technical debt — and retiring it — is a necessary engineering activity that has a business purpose. Everyone must understand that technical debt arises as a result of everyone’s behavior — not just the behavior of technologists.
Image (cc) Bob Burkhardt courtesy Wikimedia.
Tensegrity structures provide a metaphor for organizations that have mastered the technical debt concept. Tensegrity structures use isolated rigid components in compression, held by a network of strings or cables in tension. The rigid components are usually struts or masts, and they aren’t in contact with each other.
The struts correspond to the users or customers of technological assets. The cables correspond to the engineering activities required to support the customers. The organization is stable relative to technical debt only when the two kinds of elements (struts and cables) work together, each playing its own role, but each appreciating the role of the other.
Advocating for cultural transformation
Advocates of any change to organizational culture are often seen as acting in their own self-interest. That’s a common risk associated with cultural transformation. It’s a risk that can lead to failure when inserting practices related to technical debt management into the culture. The risk is greatest when advocates for change are drawn exclusively from the technical elements of the enterprise. The ideal advocates for these ideas and practices are the internal customers of the technical organizations, and senior management.
Other posts in this thread
- Non-technical precursors of non-strategic technical debt
- Failure to communicate long-term business strategy
- Technological communication risk
- Team composition volatility
- The Dunning-Kruger effect can lead to technical debt
- 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
- Unrealistic definition of done
- 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
