6 Factors that Cause Technical Debt

Even if you don’t have a solid grasp on the term technical debt, most people understand the concept of debt. For instance, with financial debt, you borrow money and then pay interest to the lender. If you don’t make regular monthly payments, interest can accumulate over time, resulting in a significant financial burden.?

Similarly, sleep debt refers to the accumulation of sleep deprivation over time. When you fail to get enough sleep each night, you experience adverse side effects such as irritability, decreased mental sharpness, and impaired motor skills.

But most people are less familiar with another type of debt—technical debt.?

What is technical debt?

Here’s how different experts have defined technical debt over time:?

• According to Ward Cunningham, co-author of the Agile Manifesto: Technical debt refers to design decisions that negatively impact code quality or maintainability. He used it to explain to WyCash’s stakeholders why refactoring was essential to their software project.
• According to Martin Fowler: Fowler added the concept of cruft, which refers to code that is unnecessarily complicated to read. He explains how much time and effort is required to keep such code working and how it makes features harder to add in the future.
• According to Steve McConnell: Technical debt refers to delayed technical work that is incurred when technical shortcuts are taken, usually in pursuit of calendar-driven software schedules. Just like financial debt, some technical debts can serve valuable business purposes. Other technical debts are simply counterproductive.

Technical debt can have a detrimental impact on software projects. It increases development costs, lowers code quality and functionality, and leads to more frequent errors in production. Therefore, it is important for businesses that engage in software development or app development to be aware of the factors that contribute to technical debt.

What’s an example of technical debt?

In short, technical debt is the cost of choosing to take a short-term approach over a long-term one. It leads to more time and effort in the future to address the problems created by this decision.

Here’s an example:?

Suppose your team is developing an app for a new social media platform. With zero users during the early stages of development, you decide to cut corners and reduce the number of security features implemented to save time.?

However, not long after your app launches, it is flooded with hundreds or thousands of users constantly trying to find and exploit security vulnerabilities.

As a result, you spend weeks or even months dealing with bugs and crashes and implementing new security measures. In the long run, you could have saved time and money by investing the extra effort needed during development to ensure that your app was secure.

Causes of technical debt

1. Prioritizing a speedy release over the quality of the product: Code debt is often attributed to the pressure to release a product quickly. You might have tight deadlines after receiving a critical funding round or be trying to compete in a crowded market where time-to-market is key, but this can lead to significant problems.
2. Poor code quality: The codebase of your product is at the heart of technical debt. If you have a high volume of bugs, they might have accumulated as developers have had to make changes quickly or work with limited resources. Legacy code can also play a role, as code written years ago can quickly become obsolete or difficult to maintain.?
3. Cutting corners: It’s not unheard of for a development team to use shortcuts or workarounds. From using third-party plugins and libraries to copying/pasting code, there are many ways that developers can quickly “hack” their way to a working solution. While these quick fixes might save time initially, they can come back to bite you later on as your product grows and evolves.?
4. Lack of skill on the development team: An inadvertent contributor to technical debt can be a lack of skill on the development team. You can make every decision with the best possible intention, but if your team members don’t have a strong technical foundation, you might end up with a poorly-architected product.?
5. Disconnect with users: Your product’s success is ultimately determined by your users. Prioritizing what your users need can help to reduce technical debt. If you don’t, you might end up building features that your customers don’t actually want.?
6. Lack of testing: Testing is essential to ensure your product works as intended and meets the highest quality standards. But if you don’t have an adequate QA team, you risk building out a product with numerous bugs and other performance issues. The very basis of DevOps is to continuously improve your product and ensure communication between all stakeholders. Good testing focuses time and resources on what really matters—your customers.

Bottom Line

For more on this subject, such as the different types of technical debt and how to avoid accumulating tech debt in the first place, check out the full blog post here. In addition, look out for our upcoming post that covers how to work your way out of technical debt without completely starting over.

Do you run a tech company or work in software development? At SWARM, we specialize in helping businesses manage their technical debt and avoid potential risks. Contact us today to learn more about our services and how we can help you keep your product on track, on budget, and high in quality.