Creed’s Guide to Addressing Technical Debt in Software

Technology evolves rapidly, and so must the software we create. However, maintaining a software project over time presents significant challenges, one of which is managing technical debt. 

Understanding and properly accounting for tech debt is crucial to the health of any software product, so we’ve put together this summary guide to explore the concept of tech debt, why it is important to address, the downfalls of neglecting it, and actionable recommendations on how to plan and incorporate tech debt improvements into your ongoing project maintenance. 

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What is Technical Debt?

Technical debt, sometimes called code debt or tech debt, is a concept in software development that refers to the future cost incurred when taking shortcuts or making suboptimal decisions in software development. This often happens when developers choose quick, easy, or low-cost solutions to meet deadlines or produce a working version of the product, rather than taking the time to create a clean and well-designed solution. These shortcuts may yield faster results in the short term, but they lead to extra work and maintenance down the road.

The metaphor of tech debt is particularly apt: just like financial debt, you can “borrow” time by implementing quick solutions, but over time, the “interest” in the form of increased maintenance and reduced agility compounds, leading to an eventual reckoning if not addressed.

Why Accounting for Technical Debt is Important

Managing tech debt is crucial for several reasons, not the least of which is the overall sustainability of a software project. Here are some of the primary reasons why it is important to account for tech debt:

1. Maintaining Code Quality

Code quality is one of the core principles of software sustainability. If technical debt is left unchecked, the quality of the codebase will begin to deteriorate, making it increasingly difficult for developers to work on the software effectively. Low-quality code is hard to understand, modify, and extend, which can significantly slow down future development efforts.

2. Reducing Costs Over Time

While taking shortcuts might save time and money in the short term, the resulting tech debt accumulates costs that compound over time. The more tech debt is allowed to build up, the costlier it becomes to fix. Addressing tech debt incrementally as it occurs is much cheaper than allowing it to build up until it becomes a critical issue requiring significant rework.

3. Improving System Performance and Scalability

Suboptimal code can degrade system performance, negatively impacting user experience. Additionally, as a project scales, the effects of tech debt become more pronounced, leading to bottlenecks and limitations that could have been avoided. Properly managing tech debt allows for greater scalability and ensures that the system can evolve without experiencing major slowdowns or operational issues.

4. Reducing Risk

Technical debt introduces risk to a software project. The longer tech debt is allowed to persist, the more unpredictable it becomes. It can hide bugs, create security vulnerabilities, and introduce stability issues that jeopardize the software. By managing tech debt properly, teams can mitigate these risks and maintain the integrity of the software.

The Downfalls of Not Handling Tech Debt

Ignoring or postponing the handling of technical debt can lead to significant negative consequences for a software project. Here are some of the key downfalls:

1. Slowed Development Speed

The effects of tech debt compound over time, leading to increasingly slow development cycles. As tech debt grows, developers find it harder to implement new features and must spend extra time dealing with a cluttered or fragile codebase. This slows down the entire software development process, making it more difficult for teams to meet deadlines and deliver value to stakeholders.

2. High Maintenance Costs

Tech debt accumulates hidden costs that can significantly impact a project’s budget. As tech debt grows, the cost of maintaining and enhancing the software also increases. Fixing issues related to tech debt often requires more effort and time than if the proper solution had been implemented initially, leading to ballooning costs.

3. Increased Defect Rate

A codebase riddled with technical debt is more likely to contain defects. The shortcuts that create tech debt often lead to poor software design, which, in turn, makes bugs and issues harder to identify and resolve. The increased defect rate leads to a decline in software quality and, ultimately, a poorer user experience.

4. Higher Risk of System Failures

Tech debt can introduce vulnerabilities that lead to system failures. As tech debt grows, the software becomes more fragile, making it easier for small changes to trigger unintended consequences. This creates a significant risk to system stability and could result in critical failures that affect users, lead to downtime, or jeopardize sensitive data.

Recommendations for Handling Technical Debt

Addressing technical debt effectively requires a proactive approach that combines planning, ongoing maintenance, and strategic decision-making. The first step in addressing technical debt is acknowledging that it exists. 

Establish a process to document and track instances of tech debt in your project management tool. Label technical debt as a distinct type of task, much like features or bugs. By keeping a running list of tech debt items, your team will be able to prioritize and address them systematically rather than ignoring them. Not all technical debt is created equal, so it’s important to prioritize which tech debt items should be tackled first based on their impact on system performance, scalability, team productivity, or user experience. Items that create significant bottlenecks or increase risk should be dealt with sooner. A priority list can help you identify and address the most critical tech debt items that affect your project.

Incorporate time to address tech debt as part of your regular development cycle. For agile teams, this can mean dedicating a portion of each sprint—for example, at Creed, we recommend 10-20%—to addressing technical debt. By making tech debt management an ongoing part of development rather than an afterthought, your team can keep it from accumulating to dangerous levels.

Establishing and enforcing coding standards is a key part of managing tech debt. Adopting practices like code reviews, pair programming, and static code analysis can ensure that the code being developed adheres to quality standards. Code quality tools such as SonarQube can automatically identify potential areas of technical debt, giving developers an early warning system to correct issues before they become a problem.

Regularly refactoring code is one of the most effective ways to manage and reduce tech debt. Refactoring involves improving the design, structure, and readability of existing code without changing its behavior. Teams should plan periodic refactoring sessions, especially for critical components of the system. By making incremental improvements to the codebase, teams can keep tech debt from growing unchecked. Regular tech debt review meetings can help teams stay on top of tech debt and prevent it from becoming an insurmountable issue. In these meetings, review the current state of tech debt, reprioritize items as needed, and determine how much progress has been made. This ongoing awareness helps ensure that tech debt remains visible and manageable.

Metrics can help quantify and track technical debt over time. Tools such as SonarQube can provide valuable insights into code quality metrics, such as cyclomatic complexity, duplicated code, and technical debt ratio. By measuring the impact of technical debt and monitoring its progression, teams can make data-driven decisions about where to invest time and resources. One of the best ways to manage tech debt is to avoid creating it unnecessarily. While it’s sometimes acceptable to take shortcuts to meet a critical deadline, avoid accumulating debt when there is no good justification for it. Consider the long-term impact of decisions during development, and resist the temptation to sacrifice quality for speed.

Technical debt is not just a technical concern—it is also a business concern. It is important to communicate the impact of tech debt to stakeholders in a way that is understandable to non-technical audiences. By involving stakeholders in decisions around tech debt management, you can ensure that there is buy-in for the time and resources needed to address it.

Present tech debt as an investment in the future stability, scalability, and maintainability of the software. When tackling technical debt, it’s important to address not only the symptoms but also the root causes. If a particular area of the codebase is accumulating significant technical debt, it may be worth investigating the reasons behind it. For example, if tight deadlines or lack of developer expertise are leading to poor-quality code, addressing these underlying issues will help prevent similar debt from accumulating in the future.

Planning and Scheduling Technical Debt Improvements

Planning and scheduling improvements to handle technical debt is an essential part of any long-term software maintenance strategy. Here are some strategies for incorporating tech debt improvements into ongoing project maintenance:

1. Treat Tech Debt as Part of Maintenance

Technical debt should be considered part of your maintenance strategy. Just as you plan for ongoing bug fixes and minor enhancements, plan for regular tech debt reduction activities. Make tech debt tasks visible and incorporate them into your project backlog. By treating tech debt as part of maintenance rather than a separate endeavor, you ensure that it is addressed consistently.

2. Allocate Budget and Resources for Debt Management

Managing tech debt requires time, effort, and resources—all of which must be planned for. Allocate part of the project budget specifically for technical debt management. This ensures that time and resources are available for tech debt activities and that it doesn’t always get deprioritized in favor of new features.

3. Use a Debt-Reduction Roadmap

Create a debt-reduction roadmap that identifies high-priority areas of tech debt and provides a timeline for addressing them. This roadmap helps ensure that tech debt reduction is done in an organized manner, with progress being tracked along the way. The roadmap should align with the overall product roadmap so that tech debt management is integrated into feature development and software maintenance.

4. Address Debt Incrementally

Tech debt is rarely something that can be solved all at once. Instead, take an incremental approach to tackling tech debt. Break down tech debt items into manageable tasks and gradually reduce the debt over time. By incorporating small, regular improvements, teams can reduce tech debt without the need for costly, large-scale refactoring efforts.

5. Balance New Features with Tech Debt Reduction

When managing a software project, it is important to strike a balance between new feature development and tech debt reduction. Both are important to the success of the product. Define a strategy that ensures the team spends time on both types of work. For example, allocate a certain percentage of every sprint to tech debt reduction or set aside specific sprints for addressing tech debt.

6. Link Tech Debt Tasks to Product Value

Linking technical debt tasks to product value helps justify the effort to both developers and stakeholders. Show how addressing a particular area of tech debt will improve system performance, reduce maintenance costs, or enable faster feature development in the future. This value-driven approach helps ensure that tech debt reduction is seen as beneficial to the product as a whole.

Managing tech debt requires a proactive and disciplined approach that includes prioritizing debt reduction, dedicating time for improvements, and ensuring that all stakeholders understand the value of a high-quality codebase. While it may not always be possible to eliminate technical debt completely, keeping it in check allows you to create better software, improve team productivity, and ultimately deliver a better product to your users.

With proper planning, clear communication, and a commitment to ongoing improvement, accounting for technical debt can become an integral part of your software maintenance strategy—one that pays off significantly in terms of reduced costs, improved performance, and increased productivity over time.

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