What the heck is technical debt?
Let's talk control and remediation.
Over the holidays Southwest Airlines experienced what is best described as a meltdown which could cost the company $825 million. Yikes! Over 16,000 flights were canceled leaving passengers stranded. Clearly, Southwest will lose millions and the reputational damages are countless. News publications, such as the New York Times, are dismayed that Southwest has yet to announce changes to the backend systems which lead to these failures. Those of us in IT know that this is not a change that can be measured in weeks or months, but years and decades. This represents one of the cold hard truths of information technology that leadership often wants to avoid --- your technical debt represents one of your greatest risks.
I see this on a daily basis in my role as a client advocate and solution architect. This risk extends to clients of all sizes, both small and large. The ghost of technical debt runs from coast to coast. It's not just an issue that national, publicly traded companies face; this is also an issue for family-owned companies based in the deep south. In short, technical debt is a concern for all businesses. In the case of Southwest, companies of this type must contend with returning a profit to its shareholders rather than reinvesting in back end systems. Perhaps the business values revenue growth over sustained profitability and a superior customer experience. Perhaps the process to migrate to a modern solution would be so painful that you sweep this concern under the rug in hopes that the problem will go away if you avoid it, but this is one problem that only grows by avoiding it.
What is technical debt?
What the heck is technical debt? I'll borrow a definition from Wikipedia, a trustworthy source of truth, because it's so darn applicable. Wikipedia defines technical debt as,
the implied cost of additional rework caused by choosing an easy (limited) solution now instead of using a better approach that would take longer.1
While I would not recommend Wikipedia as a citation for your term paper, this is a powerful and simplistic definition that should capture your attention. These quick and easy bandaids that we patch our problems with potentially come with substantial hidden costs. Technical debt also comes with "interest," meaning the debt grows exponentially the longer the problem goes unaddressed.
How do we find technical debt?
Let's cover a few practical ways that you can discover technical debt in your organization.
Polling your developers. What do they have to say?
Listen to the users who complain of these problems the most.
Reoccurring issues. Systems that constantly crash. Ghost in the machine!
"We'll fix that later."
Lack of testing when releasing new code or refreshes.
Lack of documentation. Do any components of your environment lack proper documentation? This could be a source of hidden technical debt.
Projects that are continuously delayed or shot down due to short-term costs.
Often technical debt is easy to find. It's the risks that is constantly in the back of your mind. You recognize the issue, but you don't see a clear path forward or a strategy in which the business will agree upon.
Types of technical debt
Splunk has documented three forms of technical debt, which we'll review briefly.
Intentional Technical Debt - You know about this debt. It's often accepted so you can get your product to market quickly.
Unintentional Technical Debt - Sloppy development, poor implementation, vendors who miss the mark, or lack of technical expertise by your team. These are common causes of unknown technical debt that lurks beneath the surface.
Environmental Technical Debt - This is often the cause of legacy systems, which are well known, but a plan has not been formulated to mitigate the risks. This is very common in the south.2
Technical debt is unavoidable. All organizations have technical debt, but the key is controlling your debt and mitigating risks. It's important to identify your debt, make your stake holders away of the practical implications, and build a plan. From there, take action.