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Last updated on 2024年8月4日

You're facing mounting technical debt in your project. How can you convey its urgency to stakeholders?

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Technical debt is a term in software development that refers to the cost of additional rework caused by choosing an easy, limited, or quick solution now instead of using a better approach that would take longer. Imagine you're steering a project rapidly accumulating such debt. It's crucial to understand and communicate the ramifications to your stakeholders effectively. You must convey the urgency of technical debt in a way that resonates with their interests and concerns.

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Ryan Walsh

Navigating complexity with innovative, personalized technology solutions.
Srikanth Katuri

CIO | Strategic Technology Advisor | Driving Digital Transformation & Leadership | GCC Growth Architect | Product…
Mohamed Hussein

Head of Solutions Delivery - BANK NXT

1 个答复

1 Understanding Debt

Technical debt, much like financial debt, can accumulate 'interest' over time, making future changes more costly and complicated. When your project accrues technical debt, it's often because of expedient choices made under pressure , but these can lead to a tangled codebase that's hard to maintain and update. As a project manager, you need to assess the debt's impact on maintainability, scalability, and performance . Once you've identified the areas of concern, you're better positioned to explain the consequences and the need for action to your stakeholders.

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Srikanth Katuri

CIO | Strategic Technology Advisor | Driving Digital Transformation & Leadership | GCC Growth Architect | Product Strategy & Innovation Leader| Servant Leader
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? Escalating Costs: Though it is unavoidable,Tech debt increases maintenance and dev costs over time, draining valuable resources and we have several examples of these in large enterprises with a regular stint of M and A's. ?? Innovation Stifled: New features and improvements slow down as the team spends more time addressing "existing issues". ?? Higher Risk of Failure: Accumulating technical debt leads to fragile systems, raising the likelihood of critical failures as historical product information goes through several iterations in "transitions". ?? Declining Performance: As debt grows, system performance degrades, impacting UX. ?? Slower Time-to-Market: Delivering new functionalities becomes slower, with accelerated loss in the market.

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Nitu Malhotra PMI-PMP?CSM Ex- Meta

Technical Project Manager | Driving Cross-Functional teams to deliver complex solutions on time
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Technical debt is an integral part of any development team. We should prioritize technical debt based on business urgency and make a balance of technical debt and business stories in every release cycle. The technical product owner should work with the Development manager to create a healthy & balanced backlog.

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2 Communicating Risks

When discussing technical debt with stakeholders, focus on the risks it poses to the project . Explain how accumulated debt can lead to increased bugs, longer development times for new features , and potential system outages, all of which can have a direct impact on the bottom line. Use language that relates to their interests—such as cost, customer satisfaction, and market competitiveness—to make the issue tangible. By framing the conversation around risk management, you help stakeholders understand that addressing technical debt is a strategic move.

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Paul C.

Dynamic Product and Project Management Leader | Senior Product Manager @10Duke | SaaS Solutions | IT Project Leader | Cross-Functional Team Leader
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The big challenge is getting senior stakeholders to understand what technical debt is and convincing them to act. Use parallels that your stakeholders can relate to. I've always used this analogy: technical debt is like an unpaid invoice which keeps generating interest & penalties. It won't go away. Over time costs pile up making it harder to balance the sheets & fixing the problem. Technical debt is corrosive & has to be within certain limits to avoid hurting the business. There is no one-size-fits-all to quantify it but these are some of the risks that accumlated debt can cause: - loss of customer trust & market credibility - delays in product development - loss of competitive advantage / reduced ability to adapt to market changes

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3 Proposing Solutions

Once stakeholders grasp the urgency of technical debt, propose a plan to address it. This could involve allocating time for refactoring , which is the process of restructuring existing computer code to improve its readability and reduce complexity. Present a roadmap that balances new feature development with debt reduction efforts. Your plan should also include preventive measures to avoid accruing more debt, such as adopting coding standards or investing in automated testing .

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4 Setting Priorities

Prioritizing which technical debts to tackle first is essential. Focus on the parts of the codebase that are most critical to your project's operations or that will deliver the most significant benefit once improved. Prioritization should be a collaborative effort involving both the development team, who have the technical insight, and stakeholders, who understand business priorities. This collaboration ensures that technical debt reduction efforts align with business goals and resources are allocated effectively.

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Mohamed Hussein

Head of Solutions Delivery - BANK NXT
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Prioritization should be collaborative effort between technical and business teams to set the right direction to ensures the efforts are aligned.

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5 Tracking Progress

To maintain stakeholder engagement in reducing technical debt, establish metrics to track progress. These could include the number of refactoring commits, the reduction in bug reports, or improvements in deployment frequency. Regularly share these metrics with stakeholders to demonstrate the value of the work being done. This transparency not only builds trust but also keeps the focus on the importance of maintaining a healthy codebase.

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Ryan Walsh

Navigating complexity with innovative, personalized technology solutions.
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Explaining technical debt to a legacy team is a sensitive task, as you may be the first to highlight risk, non compliance, or quality issues that the existing team has personal pride and ownership with. Focusing only on what's missing, lacking, or not up to snuff is not going to help build long term working relationships that will be required for success. Ultimately it's about what's ahead more so than what's behind. Establishing something new, improving it, achieving the next level, improving and achieving is a natural part of continuous improvement. Recognize the efforts that went into the original build and focus on requirements for what's ahead, highlighting what will unlock in the future based on required improvements.

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6 Long-term Strategy

Finally, advocate for a long-term strategy to manage technical debt as an integral part of your project management practices. Encourage stakeholders to think of technical debt not as a one-time issue but as an ongoing concern that requires continuous attention. This approach includes setting aside dedicated time for addressing technical debt in your development cycles and making it a part of your team's workflow. By embedding good practices, you can mitigate the risk of technical debt spiraling out of control in the future.

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You're facing mounting technical debt in your project. How can you convey its urgency to stakeholders?

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6

1 Understanding Debt

2 Communicating Risks

3 Proposing Solutions

4 Setting Priorities

5 Tracking Progress

6 Long-term Strategy

Software Project Management

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You're facing mounting technical debt in your project. How can you convey its urgency to stakeholders?

1

2

3

4

5

6

1 Understanding Debt

2 Communicating Risks

3 Proposing Solutions

4 Setting Priorities

5 Tracking Progress

6 Long-term Strategy

Software Project Management

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