Technical Debt: How Quick Fixes in It Can Lead to Long-Term Costs
This article first appeared in our Jacksonville Daily Record Industry Insights column. Shortcuts are a good thing when you’re stuck in Jacksonville’s traffic. Not so much when you’re the one responsible for keeping your digital infrastructure healthy. Detours and shortcuts in your IT projects lead to technical debt. Just like consumer debt, technical debt is not a good thing. It eventually will drag down your bottom line and hurt your brand identity as things get slower, less efficient, less reliable, and more costly. In a nutshell, technical debt is the result of poor decisions including not fixing buggy code and sacrificing proper design to get a problem back to working order quickly. Business leaders fall into this trap because it’s cheaper and easier in the short term, and maintenance isn’t as exciting as new tech initiatives. Or, they might rely on a development team that lacks the necessary skills or training, exacerbating the issue. Imagine a family business that has turned into a big-time company over the years- they sell pipes and fittings and deliver them all over the state. One of the original family members wrote a proprietary software system back in the 1980s – basically their own enterprise resource planning software (ERP). Over the years, different development companies have added features here and there, but it can take weeks and months for new employees to understand how to do even the simplest of tasks inside the walls, and trying to de-bug or perform maintenance on the whole system is a task that no one has time for, and nobody wants to do. At one point, out of desperation, management hires a consultant to come in and document the entirety of the software, talking to every major stakeholder and working through the system on-site. Their investment leads to the same conclusion: the system is a dinosaur and it’s costing the company more money than it’s saving them at this point, slashing away at the company’s revenue, efficiency, and customer service. The software, while somewhat functional, is outdated, unstable, and full of technical debt–which also impacts their company’s overall value. There’s a better way of doing business to minimize technical debt, but it requires business leaders to be proactive and make the right call at the right time. 1. Assess (and maintain!) the health of your system 2. Don’t procrastinate on fixing issues 3. If a new feature isn’t up to snuff, don’t approve it. 4. Fight the urge to compromise in the spirit of quick fixes. 5. Collaborate with a trustworthy and proactive software development team with a proven track record. Workarounds that circumvent the workflow of any digital system are a risk to its integrity. The more an organization uses shortcuts to patch a problem the more technical debt it accrues – drifting away from the intended use of their software and making it more costly to return to the straight and narrow later on, or when you’re forced to replace the system altogether. It’s the digital equivalent of putting a warped house frame on a solid slab. Each level up will get warped as a result of the earlier veer from the path. Technical debt results in lower business value, higher upkeep costs, slower development, and increased security vulnerabilities–to name a few. Remember, all of these things stack up into a company’s ability to innovate and scale. In the digital age, falling behind can be a death knell on both brand identity and the bottom line. Don’t let technical debt drag down your business. Ready to make a change? Reach out to my team at hello@valyr.com and start prioritizing long-term solutions. About Valyr Valyr (“valor”), a local family-owned and operated software development company, is certified as a Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) and Minority-Owned Business Enterprise (MBE), and is dedicated to excellence in creating the tools and systems that help Jacksonville businesses run smarter and faster. Visit us at valyr.com.