technology debt assessment framework
3 min read
What is technical debt and how do you track it?
While financial debt is easy to track, technical debt is not inherently a metric. With some tweaking, the theory of technical debt can be translated to certain metrics, such as time-to-market versus time working overtime to pay down interest. Or, it can show up as less productivity from a team—which is also difficult to measure.
What is planned technical debt and when does it occur?
This type of technical debt occurs when the organization makes an informed decision to generate some technical debt with the full understanding of the consequences (risks and costs). In the case of planned technical debt, it is critical to be as precise as possible in terms of defining the compromises the organization intends to make.
technology debt assessment
How to measure technical debt in software testing?
To effectively measure technical debt, we need to express it as a ratio of the cost it takes to fix the software system to the cost it took to build the system. This quantity is called the Technical Debt Ratio [TDR]. I hope you enjoyed reading.
How do you manage technical debt?
One of the most important steps to take in managing technical debt is to acknowledge that it exists in the first place and share that discovery with key stakeholders. It should be the responsibility of IT management to set the tone and communicate to non-IT managers about the true cost of technical debt.
tech debt
What is Tech debt and how do you manage it?
Rather, tech debt refers to the cost of incurring and later correcting poor-quality code, not the code itself. In its purest form, tech debt is intentional with known trade-offs. Code may be written deliberately (either as part of an MVP or as a temporary solution) with the intention that it can be fixed down the line.
technology debt assessment
What is targeted technical debt in software development?
Targeted technical debt—debt that is known and has been targeted for servicing by the development team. "Interest payments" are caused by both the necessary local maintenance and the absence of maintenance by other users of the project.
tech debt
Is technical debt a bad thing?
Similarly to monetary debt, technical debt is not necessarily a bad thing, and sometimes (e.g. as a proof-of-concept) is required to move projects forward. On the other hand, some experts claim that the "technical debt" metaphor tends to minimize the ramifications, which results in insufficient prioritization of the necessary work to correct it.
What is technical debt in product management?
Product Management: Technical Debt. What is Technical Debt? Definition: Technical debt (also known as tech debt or code debt) describes what results when development teams take actions to expedite the delivery of a piece of functionality or a project which later need to be refactored.
What is targeted technical debt?
Targeted technical debt—debt that is known and has been targeted for servicing by the development team. "Interest payments" are caused by both the necessary local maintenance and the absence of maintenance by other users of the project. Ongoing development in the upstream project can increase the cost of "paying off the debt" in the future.
technology debt management
Is there a simple solution to managing Tech debt?
While there’s no simple one-size-fits-all solution, Dag’s found that classifying debt into categories helps with communicating and addressing tech debt issues in and across teams. He shared the three main types of tech debt, and his strategy for addressing each, with FirstMark.
