5 Steps to Tackle The Technical Debt Mountain
Learn how to manage technical debt effectively and propel your business forward.
Rupert Colbourne, CTO of Orbus Software delves into the critical concept of technical debt and its profound impact on organizational agility and innovation. Drawing from industry insights, Rupert presents actionable strategies to navigate and mitigate this looming challenge.
With the tax deadline passing us by, there is another threat that many organizations are burying their head in the sand about and hoping disappears: technical debt. Technical debt is the investment required to fix issues with legacy software and is a long-standing problem that limits agility and incurs significant costs. Rushed cloud migrations during the pandemic and the perennial focus on release speed have significantly contributed to the escalating problem.
Accruing technical debt is inevitable; however, it can hamper transformation efforts if left unchecked. Maintaining legacy software is expensive and can reduce agility and throttle innovation. The situation is more acute in regulated industries, where outdated systems and inflexible software are commonplace.
The Technical Debt Headache
Gartner defines technical debt as “the outstanding amount of money an organization must spend on digital technology cost obligations to continue doing business.”
According to McKinsey, 40% of IT balance sheets are allocated to technical debt, and 30% of CIOs admit that over 20% of new product budgets solve problems stemming from technical debt.
Keeping levels in check is vital. A significant budget is required to resolve issues if the debt is too high. Conversely, eradicating technical debt can result in an organization being too slow to react to the market. Therefore, organizations need to find the sweet spot that intersects strategic software and application modernization.
IT teams must focus on ensuring existing software and systems are resilient, secure, and future-proofed. Technical debt creates a host of issues, including software vulnerabilities, which can lead to cybersecurity failures. The poster child for what can go wrong is the Southwest Airlines meltdown, which resulted in over 13,000 flights canceled at the peak of the holiday season.
Undoubtedly, CIOs must take action to reduce the burden. Otherwise, they will struggle to modernize their operations and invest in new technologies. Below are some steps to help tackle the escalating problem.
1. Track and monitor technical debt
Many organizations are blind to technical debt, and it’s paramount that they understand the size of the problem. Businesses should establish parameters for acceptable levels so that they can then work to ensure the debt remains within the agreed-upon boundaries. To do this requires categorizing and tracking using specific tools. Companies understand their exposure and can manage it by measuring and monitoring to keep the technical debt ratio acceptable.
Developers can use code inspection analyzers to scan and report on potential tech debt discovered. This is then tracked, prioritized, and remediated as part of a continuous lifecycle to ensure secure and scalable software. For example, developers may rush to meet deadlines if a bank implements fraud detection capabilities where software needs to be shipped quickly. Having monitoring in place with gated checks ensures quality is not compromised by making bad design or implementation decisions. Investing in a monitoring tool may have upfront costs, but it will pay dividends.
2. Define an architecture
Creating an organizational architecture provides a framework for managing, supporting, and securing technology. Examples include enterprise architecture for aligning business goals and IT, technology architecture for designing IT infrastructure, including cloud services applications, and integration architecture for developing robust applications with interoperability in mind. If a new solution doesn’t support the approach, it shouldn’t proceed. Over time, frameworks can evolve to support the changing needs of the business. Adhering to a set architecture reduces the volume of debt accruing and accelerates the pace of development.
3. Embrace the cloud & update legacy software
One way to help build resiliency is to migrate legacy software to the cloud. This makes it easier to pay off the technical debt accrued over time. Additionally, it can then be maintained using modern software development approaches.
Southwest Airlines’ failure to modernize its software for scheduling crews drove the mass disruption referenced previously, resulting in a record fine of $140 million. Since then, Delta and American Airlines have announced they are modernizing and moving operations to the cloud.
See More: Technical Debt: How to Tame the Sleeping Giant in Your DevOps Team
4. View technical debt as a business risk
Too often, technical debt is viewed solely as an IT issue. However, it’s a problem for the entire organization. Consider the Southwest Airlines example, where technical debt affected every stakeholder. By viewing it as a risk, the company understands the problem and the potential consequences of failing to address it. This put the issue on leadership’s radar, making it easier to secure budget and resources to reduce the exposure.
As outlined, having visibility and tracking tech debt makes it easier for everyone to grasp the magnitude of the problem and how it could impact the organization. Understanding the interest cost in specific business areas creates a culture of shared accountability and puts it firmly on the radar of leadership.
5. Automated software testing is mandatory
For decades, software development has focused on releasing minimum viable products. However, this obsession with speed has driven up technical debt levels. To keep it in check, IT must focus more on quality. AI-powered test automation can help identify, predict, and fix issues before releasing software. Continuously monitoring applications in production helps improve quality and prevents problems from being introduced by updates.
For example, if a bank is launching a new mobile app for its customers, it can use automated testing to check the code and the overall experience for various types of users. The AI test solution can continuously hunt for bugs and fix them to ensure a high-quality experience. This minimizes the risk of customer churn from pushing out an app or defective software updates.
Scaling the Debt Mountain
Modernizing systems and applications is a priority for enterprises, regardless of industry. However, reducing the technical debt burden is mission-critical to set themselves up for long-term success. By following the steps outlined, organizations can tackle the problem head-on in pursuit of creating an agile and resilient company.
How does your organization handle technical debt? Share your insights with us on Facebook, X, and LinkedIn. We’d love to hear from you!
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