B2B SaaS Insights #7 - Managing Technical Debt

The pressure to develop and release in a growing B2B Scale-Up most probably leads to the accumulation of technical debt. Ignoring this debt can stifle your ability to scale down the road. According to a recent survey, 70% of software developers admit that technical debt significantly impacts their productivity and close to 60% of organisations do not have a strategy in place to manage it [1].

For engineering managers and CTOs on the brink of scaling up, managing tech debt is not just an option but a necessity. But how?

Understanding Technical Debt

Technical debt refers to the implied cost of future rework / refactoring caused by choosing a quick solution now instead of finding a better approach that would most likely take longer to build in the first place. It can manifest in various forms, such as code debt, design debt, and infrastructure debt - leading to lower velocity, slower release cycles and in some cases to the inability to deliver a specific functionality at all with the existing solution.

Startups & Scaleups are especially at risk to incur technical debt, through high pressure to deliver fast, typically patchy documentation and 'last minute' feature releases for important clients. While these shortcuts may deliver short-term gains they usually result in long-term inefficiencies and higher cost down the road.

Building up multiple high-performing SaaS engineering teams and delivering highly scalable solutions for our clients at Virtido for the past 10 years, I learnt a lot about technical debt (the hard way!).

???? Read on to learn what to learn how to keep technical debt to a minimum and prepare your startup for success.

1. Identifying and Assessing Technical Debt

Audit Your Codebase: Conducting a deep tech debt audit is the first step. Start by reviewing your codebase to identify problematic areas, such as poorly written code, outdated libraries, or insufficient documentation. Tools like SonarQube or Snyk can help to (partially) automate this process.

Prioritisation Frameworks: Not all tech debt is created equal. Using prioritisation frameworks like the Technical Debt Quadrant or RICE (Reach, Impact, Confidence, Effort) can help you assess the severity and impact of each debt item, allowing you to tackle the most critical issues first.

2. Strategies for Managing and Reducing Tech Debt

Regular Refactoring "Tech Sprints": Regularly refactoring your code is essential to keep tech debt under control. This means continuously improving the code's structure without changing its behavior. Best practices for refactoring include breaking down large functions, removing duplicate code, and improving variable names for better readability. At Virtido we typically try to either have regular technical sprints or a part of the team (under rotation) assigned to refactoring and stabilising tasks throughout development.

Documentation: Comprehensive documentation is crucial in mitigating tech debt. It ensures that future developers can understand and maintain the codebase effectively. Documenting APIs, code comments, and system architecture can prevent misunderstandings and errors.

Automated Testing: Implementing automated testing can catch potential issues early and reduce the accumulation of tech debt. Unit tests, integration tests, and end-to-end tests should be part of your continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipeline to ensure code quality.

Code Reviews: Regular code reviews foster a culture of quality and accountability. Peer reviews help identify potential issues and areas for improvement. They also encourage knowledge sharing and adherence to coding standards.

3. Balancing Tech Debt and Speed

Trade-Off Analysis: Balancing the need for new features with addressing tech debt requires care. Assess the potential impact of new features against the risks and costs associated with newly incurred debt. In some cases, addressing tech debt may take precedence to avoid future scalability issues.

Dedicated Time for Tech Debt: Allocate specific sprints or a percentage of each sprint to address tech debt. This dedicated time ensures that tech debt is systematically managed and reduced without sacrificing feature development.

4. Tools and Techniques for Managing Tech Debt

Tools like JIRA, Trello, and specialised tech debt management tools can help track and manage tech debt. These tools allow you to create tasks, set priorities, and monitor progress.Implementing CI/CD pipelines will help manage tech debt by automating the testing and deployment process. This ensures that new code integrates smoothly with the existing codebase and checks your quality gates.

5. Building a Culture of (Code) Quality

Best Practices and Standards: Adopting coding standards and best practices is essential to keep future tech debt to a minimum. Establish guidelines for code quality, naming conventions, and documentation to ensure consistency and maintainability - or follow well-know public styles like 谷歌 's https://github.com/google/styleguide.

Training and Education: Ongoing training and education for your development team are crucial. Encourage attendance at conferences, workshops, and online courses to keep up with industry best practices and new technologies.

Communication: Push for an environment of open communication about technical debt - everyone has it, accept it! Encourage team members to raise concerns and discuss potential debt items. Transparency helps prioritize and address tech debt effectively.

To summarise - managing technical debt is a critical aspect of preparing your B2B SaaS startup for rapid growth. By conducting regular audits, prioritising debt items, and fostering a culture of code quality, you can ensure that your startup remains agile and scalable. Start addressing your tech debt today to build a strong foundation for the future.

Further reading - for more insights on the topic, check out these two books I can recommend

• "Managing Technical Debt" ?? Amazon
• "Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code" ?? Amazon

Sources

[1] - Impact of Technical Debt

?? All articles from this series

?? #1 The Power of IDaaS

?? #2 Professional API Management

?? #3 Embracing The Monolith

?? #4 Tried & True over New & Shiny

?? #5 Designing for Multi-Tenancy

?? #6 - Speed vs Quality

?? #7 - Managing Technical Dept

?? #8 - Navigating the Scale-Up Journey as an Engineering Manager

?? Please leave a comment to share your experience with handling technical debt in your organisation.

?? Do you have any questions or are interested in learning more and how to get started with managing and reducing technical debt in your scale-up, reach out!