As a development manager, you are constantly faced with the challenge of combating technical debt in your project. You need to highlight the potential consequences of poor technical implementation of software. The term "technical debt" is used to illustrate to managers and other stakeholders of software projects that postponing measures to ensure and improve technical quality does not speed up software development, but slows it down - the longer, the more. This debt is in time, money and risk.
Let's look at the 2 types of technical debt:
Conscious or deliberate indebtedness
A distinction must be made here between reckless indebtedness: "We don't have time for design" and prudent indebtedness: "We have to deliver quickly and deal with the consequences later".
If you deliberately hire a team of inexperienced developers to get the product to market quickly, this is deliberate debt. This doesn't have to be a bad thing. Sometimes it is possible to get a decent product to market and generate revenue earlier. This early revenue can help solve and fix problems that may arise in the future. But it's always a risky approach. There can be delays in fixing bugs and customers can bounce back.
Unintentional or inadvertent debt
Unintentional debt occurs when development teams adopt bad practices without realizing it. But again, there is the thoughtless version: "What is object-oriented programming?" or the sustainable version: "Now we know what we should have done".
Companies affected by unintentional debt usually hire less qualified developers or neglect adequate testing and code review processes. In both cases, there is a risk that technical problems or security vulnerabilities go undetected for an extended period of time.
How can technical debts be corrected?
- The possibility of improvement through refactoring. Here, the code is restructured to improve its readability, maintainability and performance without changing its external behavior.
- Establishing a rigorous quality assurance (QA) process helps improve code quality.
- Track technical debt and treat technical debt tasks like any other development project in your team's backlog. By mixing them in with your regular work, you ensure that they are not forgotten.
- Establish best practices for coding. To reduce technical debt, developers must adhere to common code etiquette and standards.
- Conduct code reviews. Code reviews provide a fresh look at typos and bugs that might be overlooked during software development. There are certified companies that offer such services.
Partnership with an offshore company
Working with an offshore development company is a smart way to reduce technical debt. We will find qualified developers abroad for you. This not only brings new ideas and skills to your team, but also improves your company's ability to solve problems faster and more efficiently.
If you opt for the high-quality offshoring approach with us, we can jointly assemble a development team with first-class engineers. In addition, you have the advantage of being able to focus with your colleagues on the core tasks that should not be outsourced.
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