How do you measure and monitor technical debt in your software projects?

For a startup, technical debt also gets accumulated as you try to make a MSP (minimum sellable product). It is a trade-off between TTM for first few customers and developing a complete product for at-scale customer base.

The most common cause of technical debt is always the same! Short-term oriented decisions in favor of delivery times, at the expense of quality. Sometimes there are also gaps in knowledge.

Code metrics can indicate vulnerabilities, but ultimately the team itself must identify where these vulnerabilities and risks lead to specific problems that need to be eliminated.

Monitoring technical debt is critical in software development, and at White Internet, we've refined this process. We employ a dynamic backlog to log and prioritize technical debt, crucial for transparent management. Additionally, we use burndown charts not only to track progress but also to visualize debt reduction velocity, enhancing our strategic planning. Regular technical debt reviews with the team ensure everyone is aligned and contributes to solutions. This ongoing dialogue helps mitigate risks early and keeps our projects agile and manageable, turning what could be a setback into a strategic advantage.

Tracking technical debt and recording it in a backlog is a waste of time! From a lean perspective, it just creates another journal that needs to be maintained and prioritized. The primary measure of progress is working software, not another backlog. Same problem as with bugs. Apply a zero defect policy. Either it is a problem, then fix it, or forget about it. Think lean!

One important form of technical debt is the inability to express business concepts in code. It will lead to convoluted structure, and hard to reason about implementation. The fix to this is to use Domain-Driven Design techniques – like event storming – to gain more insights about your domain, and to end-up with a more intention-revealing code source, that speaks the same language as the one the domain experts uses (aka Ubiquitous Language). It will improve the collaboration between the engineers and the business, and will simplify the maintenance and evolution of the code.

Don't compromise on quality. Quality is smooth, smooth is fast. Nothing will improve developer experience and developer productivity more than a focus on quality.