Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about technical debt. It’s a great metaphor for how time is lost in programming projects but, like all metaphors, you have to be aware of where it stops working.
For example, when people compare national debts to household debts, this ignores how national banks control the supply of money, and that countries run into different problems to households when they’re over-extended.
Technical debt is, basically, time saved now which costs more later – taking tactical short cuts. It’s usefully compared to any other corporate debt, providing leverage for growth that would be impossible otherwise. The problem is that people don’t seem to track how much technical debt they’ve accrued and need to ‘pay back’. I’ve worked at a number of places where dealing with inefficient processes that were set up in a hurry took up a substantial amount of day-to-day work.
Having seem companies struggling with debt, I wonder if technical debt should be treated more like personal or household debt. Advice to people who are struggling with debt generally focusses on three points:
- Reduce outgoings to focus on paying off the debt
- Pay off the highest-interest debts first
- Do not save or invest anything until any costly debts are dealt with.
The software equivalent of expensive credit card debt is any inefficiencies or manual steps in repeated processes. If your regular work is taking longer than it should, there’s less time available for new things. So, like a household in debt, don’t try to invest in new things before sorting these existing inefficiencies. Fix the automated tests so no-one needs to reduce the manual checks on a release. Automate the entire release process. Improve testing to prevent disruptive production bugs.
Technical debt is a good thing when it’s used to provide leverage for growth. But, if you’re not tracking this debt accurately then maybe you should treat technical debt more like household debt, and prioritise reducing it to a manageable level. There’s no point investing in new features when you’re paying high interest on broken processes.