If you are in charge of IT, you are expected to implement strategies that will save money, revamp operations, and increase sales. As a business, technical debt is likely to be one of your toughest challenges.
When it comes to delivering IT solutions, technical debt can be a major source of friction and delay. In what way? Your organization’s IT department is incapable of meeting the needs of a growing company. To ensure that IT can fulfil its commercial purpose, leaders in the field must reduce their level of technical debt reduction.
Reasons For A High Level Of Technical Debt
Technical debt can be brought on by a variety of sources. Here are a few of the most common, in my opinion.
- Expense Reduction Orders From The Top Brass
It is common practice for businesses on the cusp of profitability or those getting ready to sell to reduce their IT spending. As a result, IT has little choice but to make do with the resources at hand, even if doing so means the end of maintenance and support for their systems.
- Consolidations By Amalgamation And Purchase
When a firm is acquired, all of its assets, including any outdated software, hardware, or IT processes, as well as any employees, are also transferred to the new owner. When a company is bought, its IT practices and policies may be drastically different from the acquiring company’s.
- Taking A Stand In Business
It is not uncommon for business stakeholders to make decisions that restrict the solution’s scope or compel IT to take shortcuts in order to meet aggressive deadlines.
- Software Architecture And Design Choices
Solution refactoring will be necessary in the future because of poor software/application architectural decisions. The “nuclear flyswatter” that is the result of over-architecting an application is notoriously tough to maintain and produces subpar results.
- Bad Choices In Selecting Software
In most cases, a software selection procedure is used to narrow down the available packaged programmes. Cost is often the primary consideration, and the procedure can be very subjective. Cheaper options may not be as good of a deal if they can’t handle growth or require a lot of upkeep.
- Inadequate Or Out-Of-Date Company Architecture
Enterprise architectures are necessary for information technology departments because they specify the platforms, technologies, and tools that are employed in the process of solution delivery. A lack of this or an out-of-date version means there is no current technical guideline to follow.
- Low-Quality Software
Refactoring is necessary when a poorly skilled team produces low-quality code. Even though they’re eager to adopt cutting-edge technology, many developers lack the knowledge necessary to create scalable applications.
- Embarrassing Software Development Cycle/Process
The quality of software produced by slack development teams is usually low. In order to guarantee the delivery of high-quality code, software development processes were established. Code quality and adherence to best practises should be reviewed often.
- Individualization of ERP systems
ERP systems come loaded with a tonne of useful features. Every enterprise resource planning system, however, has a set of standard business procedures that may be modified to fit the needs of individual enterprises. The difficulty arises when a company makes an upgrade. When there are too many individual touches, it becomes cumbersome to upgrade and difficult to keep up. The end result is an ERP system that is no longer supported.
Overcoming Technical Indebtedness: A Guide
TETRA™ technical debt reduction is a problem for almost every business, and fixing it all at once is usually out of the question.
Consequently, as CIO, how do you go about eliminating technical debt? Then, think of doing the following:
- Recognize
Calculate how much technical debt your company currently has. In order to move on, you’ll need a thorough list.
- Emphasize
When tackling technical debt, the largest risks must be dealt with first due to cost constraints. The following set of questions will assist you in setting priorities:
- To what extent do certain programmes and software constitute a risk to data privacy and safety?
- What services or products are potentially dangerous to your business’s suppliers, partners, or customers?
Is there a way to identify the platforms and solutions that have the greatest effect on IT budgets?
- Forecast The State Of Things To Come
Be sure to specify the technical setting of the future state. Delivering solutions that aren’t compatible with the desired platform or set of technologies increases the likelihood of incurring more technological debt if this isn’t the case.
- Implement
Develop an actionable plan to execute in tandem with the business and senior leadership after you’ve determined the top priorities and future state architecture. You may reduce potential damage to your company by focusing on the things that are both important and dangerous very far away.
Despite common fears, technical debt need not impede your company’s ability to implement useful IT solutions. By pinpointing the specific locations of technical debt, you can prioritise the most dangerous problems and develop a strategy to fix them.
