Technical Debt leads to Quality Degradation
I've previously discussed the consequences of technical debt. Let's explore an aspect that's often invisible to non-technical stakeholders: quality degradation.
The 3 Steps of Quality Degradation
- It starts small: adding a few lines to spaghetti code or postponing an update.
- Non-technical stakeholders are unaware of the problem until it's too late
- Urgent issues force engineers to halt feature development to fix technical debt, often for months.
The Ripple Effect
- Frustrated stakeholders as delivery times increase
- Trust erosion between the engineering team and stakeholders
- Engineers pushing for complete rewrites, stalling product development
What Should Technical Leaders Do?
- Make technical debt visible to stakeholders early.
- Propose clear action plans for handling it.
- Avoid extremes: Don't jump on every minor issue, but don't shy away from necessary conversations.
- For each piece of technical debt, determine its urgency and how to handle it.
Discussing technical debt early and managing it with feature development is vital to maintaining a healthy, productive engineering team and strong stakeholder relationships.