Ways to Prevent Technical Debt

Technical debt, also known as design or code debt, arises when a company makes compromises in coding standards to meet a deadline. This means developers might bypass best practices to accelerate development. This approach isn’t ideal. However, engineers often choose it to adhere to schedules. They understand that fixing specific code issues could delay the entire project. Technical debt implies postponing improvements on problematic code, essentially creating a “debt” to be “repaid” by revising the code later.

This practice is widespread among development teams but overusing it can lead to significant problems. It increases the need for resource micromanagement. The team will have to allocate more time and resources to address postponed issues. If not properly managed, technical debt can derail the project, harm the company’s reputation and impact the product’s release.

Understanding Technical Debt

What is Technical Debt?

Technical debt is a metaphor coined by Ward Cunningham, a software developer, to describe the trade-off between short-term gains and long-term costs in software development. Essentially, it refers to the accumulated cost of taking shortcuts or making suboptimal design decisions during the development process. These shortcuts may include writing quick and dirty code, skipping code documentation, delaying necessary refactoring or neglecting testing and quality assurance processes.

Types of Technical Debt

Technical debt can manifest in various forms, including design debt, code debt, testing debt, documentation debt and infrastructure debt. Design debt arises from shortcuts or compromises made in system architecture or software design. This leads to scalability, performance or maintainability issues. Similarly, code debt refers to poorly written or undocumented code that is difficult to understand, modify or maintain. Additionally, testing debt occurs when testing and quality assurance processes are neglected or incomplete, resulting in the accumulation of bugs and defects.

Meanwhile, documentation debt refers to outdated or insufficient documentation that hinders understanding and collaboration among team members. Finally, infrastructure debt arises from outdated or poorly maintained infrastructure. This includes outdated libraries, frameworks or development tools. Such issues can lead to security vulnerabilities, compatibility problems or performance bottlenecks.

Causes of Technical Debt and How to Measure It

Technical debt can arise due to time constraints, inadequate code refactoring or limited testing. Sometimes, engineers might submit buggy software just to meet deadlines. This decision can also be deliberate, such as when there is an urgent need to release the product to the market. Even if the code is technically correct, it might suffer from poor readability or errors in documentation. This can create development issues later on, as another developer or technical writer might need to revise the technical documents or manuals, resulting in wasted time.

To manage technical debt, it is crucial to analyze and measure it. You can calculate technical debt using remediation and development costs as parameters. Remediation costs refer to the total expenses required to fix flawed software. Development costs are the expenses involved in creating the software.

To calculate the technical debt ratio, divide the remediation cost by the development cost and multiply by 100. The resulting figure is the technical debt ratio. If the ratio is less than 5%, the debt is manageable and within common limits. However, if the ratio exceeds 5%, you may need to take swift action to reduce the debt and prevent potential losses.

Ways to Prevent Technical Debt

A high level of technical debt is problematic for a company. Fortunately, there are several methods to reduce technical debt, including the following.

Automated Testing

Automated testing is one of the most effective methods for reducing technical debt. It involves using a bot or automated solution to conduct thorough testing on your product. Automated testing ensures there are no bugs in the code by running multiple debugging cycles each time a module is modified.

Instead of organizing manual testing sprints, investing in automated testing frameworks and software is more beneficial. You can also integrate bug fixing into your automation tool to handle repetitive bugs. Automated tests and continuous integration address all bug-related issues in poor code, saving engineers time and preventing future problems. However, automated testing is not a solution for all bugs. These automation solutions are most effective when combined with other manual tests throughout the development life cycle.

Standardizing Code

While it reduces development time, sub-standard code offers only short-term benefits. Relaxing coding standards leads to cumbersome software and delayed delivery dates. One practical approach to addressing this is to adhere to best practices in coding. When developers follow a good code structure and methodology, it helps reduce technical debt and better strategize the product.

Pair programming is another effective technique. This involves two developers working together on a single workstation. One developer acts as the driver, handling all coding actions while the other serves as the navigator, guiding strategic actions to ensure the project stays on track. This method produces better and more productive results.

Utilizing Project Management Tools

A key strategy for eliminating technical debt is better project planning. This can be achieved using project management tools, which help organize and synchronize developers’ work and enhance project efficiency. Project management tools also facilitate managing global teams. Shared documents and calendars keep everyone informed about major events and help them prepare accordingly. Examples of task management tools include Jira and Trello.

Adopting Issue Tracker

Another method to reduce technical debt is by tracking and quickly fixing software issues. Issue tracking or testing tools can record specific errors for correction in later modules. Tools like SonarGraph and Klocwork analyze your code and run scripts that flag specific errors. You can then review the problematic areas and restructure them. This approach will improve your code quality, yield better results and save time.

System and Discovery Setting

Systems often become outdated and require constant fixes to function properly. This is usually due to years of poor incremental changes made by individuals who do not fully understand the system architecture. To future-proof your system, you must continuously refactor its design. It’s also important to avoid introducing unnecessary complexity, which can lead to bigger issues. Discovery testing can help identify why a system isn’t meeting performance standards. Utilizing human insight during this process ensures that your actions align with customer needs.

Conclusion

In conclusion, effective management of technical debt is paramount for ensuring the long-term success and sustainability of software projects. By acknowledging the various forms and repercussions of technical debt, and by implementing a range of best practices, organizations can mitigate its accumulation and maintain the quality and functionality of their software products.

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