Technical Debt MANAGEMENT

Quick Tech Tips to keep you focused

Info Cards

2

•Metaphor proposed by Ward Cunningham in 1992 to explain problems caused by “developing not in the right way” and non-technical project stakeholders.

What is Technical Debt?

! !! !!! !!!!

•Similar to Financial Debt •Dangerous if the incurred interest and the debt

are not payed

3

!

Analysis + Design Architecture

Design, Patterns,

Prototyping,

Technical Maturity

Best Practices and Tools Review, Tests,

Documentation,

Staging

Environments

"

l

(A) Clean and Smart (B) Quick and DirtyMake it work Deliver it as soon as

possible, lower cost

on current release

Postpone Enhancements Increased maintenance cost, Risk that debt gets out of control

#

$

Takes longer to implement, make the maintenance easier

Delivers features sooner, make the maintenance harder

How to deliver the Software Product?

4How to deliver the Software Product?

•There is "no right answer" here… •Sometimes rapid prototyping is enough •Time-to-Market is critical •Business contracts and deadlines are critical•The goal is to make conscious decisions and

being able to deal with consequences •Avoid unexpected surprises

5

•Decreasing of team speed •Missed deadlines •Estimation errors •Cumulative defects •Many production defects•Team stress and instability •Low trust in the results•Inaccurate problem analysis•Blaming others instead taking of responsibility •Being scared of change anything (side-effects)

Symptoms

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•"Code smells…” •“It works”for now, I will refactor it later…” • “Only John understands how to change this

code" • “Lets do the testing later…”. •“Just do it now, the deadline is coming up…” •“The code is unreadable” •“X is related to the problem cause… otherwise

we would be able to do better” (X != Me, always)

Common quotes

The Relative Cost of a Fixing a Defect 7

Reference: [1] http://www.astqb.org/press-room/ISTQB_Certification_News_2015_1.html

Rela

tive

Cos

t of F

ixin

g a

Def

ect

Reqs Design Code Unit Test System Test UAT Post-Release

150x

50x40x

20x10x5x1x

8Technical Debt Management

•Types of Debt•Inadvertent •Deliberate

Reference: [1] http://martinfowler.com/bliki/TechnicalDebt.html

9Technical Debt Quadrant

Inadvertent

Deliberate

Reckless PrudentReference: [1] Martin Fowler’s technical debt quadrant

"What’s Layering?" "What’s design?”

"We don’t have time for Design"

"We must ship now and deal with consequences"

“Now we know how we should have done it"

TECHNICAL DEBT MANAGEMENT

%Notes

11Notes: Common situations

•A beginner technical team implements an immature solution that impacts the future of the product.

•The Product Owner neglects the risk management and does not evaluate the technical team arguments, he does not understand the short and long term consequences.

•Stakeholders who do not understand the investment value in the internal product quality

•The unpredictable, some cases are harder to predict the results: Innovation, R&D projects

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•Goal: Consciously Manage the Debt. •It is not a methodology or metric, it is a

metaphor •Create Action Plans (Plan-Do-Check-Act) for

continuous improvement • Immediate (Short Term)• Medium Term• Long Term

•Pay the interest and avoid the debt increasing•Manage the risk, do not ignore it

Notas: Technical Debt Management

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• References: [1] http://martinfowler.com/bliki/TechnicalDebtQuadrant.html

[2] http://www.infoq.com/articles/managing-technical-debt

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