RE: Dealing with Technical Debt

SSC Guru

Points: 124210

March 15, 2019 at 7:40 am

#2024567

Steve Jones - SSC Editor - Thursday, March 14, 2019 8:35 AM
Matt Miller (4) - Wednesday, March 13, 2019 6:45 PM
I would agree, that said in some cases - doing it right might take a lot longer to move into place. You first have to win over the hearts and minds, and not burn out your welcome while you're slaying said hearts and winning said minds. We've had to spend a few years showing that our technical debt actually has very real costs and liabilities if ignored, and while it's frustrating as hell to eat crow or choke down some of the half baked solutions you KNOW will blow up in no time, in time, people start remembering the feedback. Just as you yourself have said, when that happens those who do recall our feedback will be much more likely to recall and incorporate our suggestions if they don't come with a large dish of " I told you so" or " we could have avoided that mess".
Like if or not - we have to get funded if we hope to do anything, right or wrong. Doing it right first time out comes over time, often after many rounds of having to do it wrong first then fixing what breaks.
You both (Jeff and you) are missing that part where you have the knowledge to do it right, or better. Often there are inexperienced people that don't have enough knowledge, but learn later. Changing code once it's in place is hard.
We all have a path in our knowledge, and it's not the same or equal for everyone.

Sorry for the pause there - I am actively involved with trying to retire some of said technical debt as we speak, so this is highly relevant here.😛

I get to live daily the part where changing code that's made it through is hard to change. I unfortunately don't have control over the skillsets of the folks doing the coding or over the latter stages of our deployment cycles, so I try to put my influence to use in avoidance when possible: in the early design phases, training, reference materials, patterns and standards. Failing that - issues often gravitate my way once they've started to fester which gives us another chance to hopefully get it right.

That said - I was simply trying to provide how we define and manage our technical debt levels, which once incurred does require all of those coordination points in business, IT leadership and PM, etc... It purposefully is a somewhat narrower definition, but it at least does have the merit of being an "easy" definition, so we no longer have to haggle over those pieces. As we find new issues or spots we may institute new standards which then bring that new issues under the umbrella.

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Your lack of planning does not constitute an emergency on my part...unless you're my manager...or a director and above...or a really loud-spoken end-user..All right - what was my emergency again?