In 2022, it is time to put technical debt management on the agenda

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Developers face unprecedented pressure to move from traditional to modern infrastructure, reduce inefficiencies, and create products that build customer satisfaction and increase revenue. Many businesses are moving forward through DevOps, but as they move forward, they may forget one thing, technology debt. Indeed, developers may move quickly and destroy certain content but never fix them. Therefore, the accumulation of technical debt leads to a decline in engineering productivity and higher production costs.

Last year, Umser Mansoor did a small survey of codehoy on technology debt. The survey found that 68 percent of 91 respondents said they developed products with high or very high-tech debt. Technical debt causes extremely high-cost loss to the company every year and devastating impacts the engineering team.

1. Time waste

Can you imagine that your development team has spent nearly three months (or more) a year on technology debt and had no hope of achieving a KPI? A Swedish survey conducted a longitudinal study of software developers found that they wasted an average of 23% of their work time due to technical debt.

Some data was supported by research on large software companies, which found that the cost of managing technology debt from large software companies was enormous, estimated to average 25% of the entire development time. The Stripe study showed that the number was even as high as 33%. It is a huge expense that can be avoided.

What worse is, as detailed in the Swedish study, resolving technical debt will only become more challenging over time, as any operation added to the code base is done above a system that already fails, so bug and glitches constantly compound. The whole team is impacted by technology debt, and it will be spread.

The ability to accelerate the speed and faster releases are hindered in value. It is hard to estimate the job time, and the profit margins for the delivery code will fall.

What debt do people waste their time on?

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According to Swedish research, wasted time is usually spent performing additional tests, then performing additional source code analysis and reconstructions. One respondent said: "Usually, it takes longer to make the right solution. This is always more or less a matter of time. Usually, when you introduce technology debt because something comes up. This is not quite the same way as we think when we plan to develop the software."

The Codeahoy study attributed technical debt to several factors, including outdated libraries, lack of documentation, poor code quality, bloated overall, static analysis tools excluded from development, lack of unit testing, arbitrary architecture, poor design decisions, and lack of continuous delivery. Specific examples include the "framework built internally ten years ago" and the "legacy AWS infrastructure without using services".

What impact does this have on the developers?

The reality of using a kitchen analogy to describe technical debt is a good example. If you run a restaurant and you only cook, without washing dishes, grill, or fridge, the MMA will soon turn off your "crap."

However, the software development can not be supervised and managed, making the kitchen staff more alert to the kitchen conditions. If nothing is done, the kitchen is initially unable to produce edible food. Generally, you can convince decision-makers that cleaning the kitchen is a better option in the long run, or update your resume and leave before the current "kitchen" burns down.

2. Low morale and reduced job satisfaction

Technical debt damages team morale and leads to an over-cognitive load. Moreover, managing dissatisfied teams is not easy. Most people take pride in doing their job right and are rewarded for their success. But if there is technical debt, they may feel dragged down or overwhelmed. It would be worse if management raised concerns with no recourse. Eighty percent of Codehoy respondents said their management was aware of technical debt. Specifically, 57 percent said their managers were aware but had no plans. 23 percent said their managers knew but didn't care.

One respondent said: "Management is actively recognizing this, and we even prioritize technology debt, but technology debt projects never go into the work-flow because it was never seen as important enough."

Another said, "One strange thing that I noticed is that our company is in financial trouble, which means solving technology debt is less priority than new features that could generate more revenue. However, many of our problems are related to our technical debt (e. g., the system was downgraded over the weekend due to poor regulation). For whatever reason, new features can continue to overcome problems that cost our users, and technical debt is becoming less resolved."

3. Talent loss

Technical debt is both a technical issue and a management issue. Happy developers are members of the high function team, if your developers are not satisfied, they leave and take their (undocumented) knowledge.

Technical debt is one of the reasons why people leave or want to leave. The Codehoy survey found that 50% of developers surveyed would likely or very likely leave because of technology debt. Another 27 per cent said they had considered the issue but were not sure. All in all, a significant number of people may be shaken by the attractive job opportunities offered by their competitors. Suppose companies are experiencing a high turnover of developers. In that case, technical debt could be a factor, especially for those who spend time fixing legacy code errors, missing more exciting projects.

4. Customer satisfaction has declined

If technology debt leads to mediocre product releases, there is an adverse customer experience risk. Developers may be somewhat away from the end-user, but when mistakes occur, they will bear the brunt of the pager and the help desk. Moreover, as the code becomes more complex, it takes longer for developers to release new features to production environments, thus reducing the overall production rate and delaying updates, causing lower customer satisfaction and ultimately a competitive disadvantage.

5. Cause legal consequences

Technical debt can have serious consequences when technical updates involve compliance with standards. It could lead to expensive data breaches, fines, and compliance penalties and even trigger lawsuits in areas such as health care and banking. In some cases, delays in task-critical software can endanger software life.

6. Kill your creativity

Every minute spent on maintenance due to technical debt is an opportunity to lose innovative or value-added jobs. Accenture studies of federal IT systems show that technical debt and the resulting IT discontinuity hinder innovation, agility, and engineering speed. Eighty-three percent said technology debt severely limited their innovation capacity, with 79 percent saying technology debt inhibited their ability to respond to change. In comparison, only 38 percent estimated the cost of repairing technology debt. The accumulation of technical debt in legacy systems is a crucial obstacle to modernization.