An Ultimate Guide on Technical Debt in Software Development

What is technical debt?

Technical debt describes an approach where software development teams choose to apply easy-to-implement solutions in an attempt to achieve quick project delivery in the shortest possible time frames; however, in the long-term perspective, these solutions result in poorly functioning software with a backlog of unresolved bugs–thus leading to technical debt. The term “technical debt” was first introduced by Ward Cunningham in 1992, though it has evolved since then.

Understanding technical debt may be a little too overwhelming for an average person. So, let’s put it simpler, technical debt is the cost development teams have to pay for choosing an easy way to build and launch software or an application.

Technical debt, for the most part, is intentional. It does not occur because of a developer’s unintentional mistake. Development teams, most of the time, consciously choose to deliver the software product with poorly written code, leaving the bugs for later to fix, and thus, submerging themselves and the product into technical debt.

How to identify technical debt?

There are a few signs that indicate that the project accrued tech deb

• The backlog of unresolved bugs is constantly expanding, visibly affecting software productivity.
• Work In Progress limit has gone up and the agile team has no time to address the bugs.
• The frequency of bugs increases due to the inability of the development team to resolve existing bugs on time.
• The source code results in being too long and “dirty” due to various antipatterns inserted into it.
• Changing an existing code or feature requires significant rewriting of the current source code.
• The estimated cost of delaying the launch increased.
• The number of codes that fix a bug is going up.
• Increase in lead time and decrease in velocity.
• The number of write-only codes goes up (e.g. the code that can only be understood by the code author).
• The burndown chart shows many pending tasks, suggesting that the project launch will most likely be delayed.
• Adding unnecessary features that were not originally included in the project plan, also called “gold plating”, results in technical debt.

How to manage and reduce technical debt?

1. Focus more on daily standups

Standup meetings are an integral part of software development. This is the time when team members get an opportunity to share status reports on their work as well as discuss any challenges they are facing while working on a project. Standup meetings are different from regular boardroom meetings because attendees are required to stand rather than sit. The team members check in and discuss the project’s progress and challenges quickly instead of having a long discussion.

Daily standups are necessary to ensure a smooth development and successful launch of the software product. Teams that prioritize a fast product launch would likely prefer to skip daily standups and conduct them once a week. However, an approach like this can have a very negative impact on the product functionality post its launch.

2. Rework your software development strategy

Choosing a certain approach when designing software is important as it sets the pace for the entire team. The approach that a software development team chooses has to be based on the requirements set by the client. However, sticking to one single method may not always bring the desired results. Any given software is dynamic, and so needs to be the methodology. Consider being flexible and combining both iterative and incremental approaches. That way, you can fix bugs and address the client’s feedback before you let the product go live.

3. Refactor the source code

Code refactoring is the process of restructuring the source code without changing its external behaviour and functionality.

Code refactoring consists of applying a series of standardised basic changes known as micro-refactorings. These changes are tiny in nature, so they preserve the software’s behaviour and functionality and are unlikely to create any new errors in existing source code. It may seem like there’s no value in code refactoring as it is done more for improving the nonfunctional attributes of the software rather than for improving the overall software functionality. However, the core value of code refactoring lies in turning the dirty code into clean code, which further plays an integral role in reducing the project’s technical debt.

When the code is clean, it is easier for you and other programmers to work with it in future stages of software development. If the code is dirty or “cluttered”, it slows down future improvements to the software as the developers will have to understand the original code first before they can change it. Code refactoring is something to consider if you want the technical debt to be as minimal as possible at the end of the software development lifecycle.

4. Preference should be given to the quality of code over quick workarounds

While the speed of software development is one of the important measures of productivity, it must not be the primary one. We know how tempting it can be to deliver the final product to the client fast, but you should never do this at the cost of software architecture. Always prioritise code quality over fast shipping to avoid code debt.

Adopting code review practices is one of the ways to ensure code quality. Code review (also known as peer review) is a methodical assessment during which one or two engineers review the code and provide their feedback. Code reviews are beneficial in several ways. It helps spot bugs and identify performance issues. It also reinforces collective ownership and promotes knowledge exchange within the team.

Code reviews require a significant time investment. You will most likely have to increase project deadlines, but it will be well worth it in the long run, e.g. you will have less technical debt to deal with at the end of the project.

5. Use test automation

Test automation (or automated testing) is a proven and reliable way to find bugs and defects in the code as early as during the initial stages of software development. Test automation helps identify bugs faster, allowing the development team to fix them in the following stages of software development.

Test automation is the opposite of manual testing, and the difference between the two processes is straightforward. Manual testing relies on staff manually screening the software and recording the results. Automated testing uses special tools that do all the screening and logging. It is more efficient than manual testing because it increases test coverage and scalability, allowing the QA teams to focus on more valuable tasks. It also serves as a foundation for other practices, such as code refactoring.

As test automation should be introduced at the earlier stages of software development, it is recommended to draw up test automation plans alongside regular roadmap feature development.

6. Try to maintain a “knowledge base”

A knowledge base is a log book where all changes implemented during the software development process are recorded for the developers to be able to track and access information related to the project and solve challenges more efficiently. As software development is a very laborious and time-consuming process that consists of several subprocesses (code documentation, checklists etc.), it is imperative to maintain a knowledge base.

Conclusion

Technical debt can significantly compromise healthy software functioning. Tech debt is like an underwater rock that developers know of but don’t quite have the time to lift. They are aware that it will crash their software project but still decide to prioritise fast project delivery over its quality. However, this does not mean that technical debt is unavoidable. By exercising proper technical debt management practices you can reduce and even minimise it.

FAQ:

1. What is technical debt in agile?

Technical debt in agile implies the extra costs and time that will have to be spent on fixing bugs, restructuring the code and making the software work as initially intended. Agile technical debt is often the result of adopting one single approach to software development – either incremental or iterative. While each approach is good on its own, none of the two is considered right or wrong, better or worse. It is, in fact, optimal to adopt both when developing software or an application and paying special attention to bug fixes, code refactoring and other refinements.

2. What are examples of technical debt?

One example of technical debt is when a product manager sets a short deadline to finish and launch the project, e.g. fast delivery is prioritised over product quality. The technical debt they accrue along the way is the code refactoring they will have to do to improve the software functionality.

Another example is when a development team chooses to work with WordPress. Developers set up an e-commerce store through WordPress for its ease of use. Technical debt – the website cannot handle the high traffic it receives, resulting in visitors turning to competition and their clients losing customers. The debt payback in this scenario is the migration to a more powerful platform.