Tech debt is bound to occur in a software engineering and development company, and it does not fix it by itself. Even worse, it accrues interest over time which you must repay on time so that your company is not slowly but surely strangulated to death. Tech debt results in lower and poor productivity causes several issues with code performance and functionality, lowers the quality of the code; affect the morale and expense of the company and much more. Therefore, it is of utmost importance that the technical, as well as non-technical teams, take the responsibility to improve the quality of the code base and all deliverables right on time.
Short Term Debt Is Feasible
It is not true that you have to rework on any code found defective anticipating tech debt as there are some short-term debts which are good enough to retain for the benefit of the business. It depends on the time and effort that would require and would be available for refactoring a code whether or not you would accept a technical debt. The major problem is the time and the strict deadline which you have to maintain, sometimes reluctantly, to stay in business and not lose any customer. Along with it critical bugs and the change of focus are also some other reasons for the occurrence of tech debt.
Impact Of Quality Challenged Code
Tech debt is bad for sure, but you cannot be sure about the quantum of the impact that a quality challenged code would have in its functionality. You can get an idea of some sort by using several derived value to determine and judge the refactoring priorities so that you can address such defective codes accordingly. At any cost, you must not ignore it saying that it is impossible as it would negatively impact your team’s delivering capabilities of codes in the future. The risk of tech debt must be handled simultaneously by your technical team, non-technical team, and stakeholders as a well-knit constituency working in tandem.
Good And Bad Debt
Depending on the place of occurrence tech debt is not always bad. You must use the concept of good enough debt while refactoring any defective code. You would find that it is not always necessary to pay off tech debt in full in some cases. It is just like deciding and prioritizing your financial debts to get credit card debt settlement to successfully handle the critical issue of managing tech debt. There must be a balance between marketing new features fast by your sales team and your technical team’s desire to follow sound engineering practices.
Prevention Is Best Remedy
Prevention of tech debt accrual is the best remedy, and there is some attribute which both your technical and management team should embrace to stop the cycle of tech debt creation. You can do this by ensuring that only mature and professional resources are used while developing code, use agile process with the involvement of the stakeholders and keep the code design simple. Also, refactor when necessary without ignoring, produce more clean codes with continuous improvement, measure everything in metrics, test, and retest codes, and maintain a good work culture.
