- All organizations, of all sizes, have some amount of technical debt, but very few systematically track, manage, and communicate it.
- Deferred project work is pushed over to operations, sometimes with little visibility or hand-off, where it gets deprioritized and lost.
- IT doesn’t have the resources or authority to make needed changes to address the impact of tech debt and can’t make the case for improvement without good data on the problem.
- Efforts to track technical debt get stuck in the weeds, don’t connect technical issues to business impact, and run out of steam.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
- Technical debt is a type of technical risk, which in turn is business risk. The business, not IT, must make the decision to accept or mitigate risk – but IT must help the business make an informed decision.
- There are two ways to keep your technical debt at a manageable level – effectively, to mitigate risk: either stop introducing new debt or start paying back what you already have.
Impact and Result
- Define and identify your technical debt. Focus on tech debt you think you can actually fix.
- Conduct a streamlined and targeted business impact analysis to prioritize tech debt based on its ongoing business impact.
- Identify options to better manage technical debt and present your findings to business decision makers.
Manage Your Technical Debt Research & Tools
Start here – read the Executive Brief
Read our concise Executive Brief to understand the business case to manage technical debt, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
- Manage Your Technical Debt – Phases 1-3
1. Identify your technical debt
Define, identify, and organize your technical debt in preparation for the technical debt impact analysis.
- Technical Debt Business Impact Analysis Tool
2. Measure your technical debt
Conduct a technical debt business impact analysis.
- Roadmap Tool
3. Manage your technical debt
Identify options to resolve technical debt and summarize the challenge and potential solutions for business decision makers.
- Technical Debt Executive Summary Presentation
Workshop: Manage Your Technical Debt
Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.
1 Define and Identify Technical Debt
The Purpose
Create a working definition of technical debt and identify the technical debt in your environment.
Key Benefits Achieved
List your technical debt.
Activities
1.1 Develop a working definition for technical debt.
1.2 Discuss your organization’s technical debt risk.
1.3 Identify 5-10 high-impact technical debts to structure the impact analysis.
Outputs
Goals, opportunities, and constraints related to tech debt management
A list of technical debt
2 Measure Technical Debt
The Purpose
Conduct a more-objective assessment of the business impact of technical debt.
Key Benefits Achieved
Identify the most-critical technical debt in your environment, in terms of business risk.
Activities
2.1 Review and modify business impact scoring scales.
2.2 Identify reasonable scenarios to structure the impact analysis.
2.3 Apply the scoring scale to identify the business impact of each technical debt.
Outputs
Business impact scoring scales
Scenarios to support the impact analysis
Technical debt impact analysis
3 Build a Roadmap to Manage Technical Debt
The Purpose
Leverage the technical debt impact analysis to identify, compare, and quantify projects that fix technical debt and projects that prevent it.
Key Benefits Achieved
Create your plan to manage technical debt.
Activities
3.1 Brainstorm projects and action items to manage and pay back critical technical debt. Prioritize projects and action items to build a roadmap.
3.2 Identify three possible courses of action to pay back each critical technical debt.
3.3 Identify immediate next steps to manage remaining tech debt and limit the introduction of new tech debt.
Outputs
Technical debt management roadmap
Technical debt executive summary
Immediate next steps to manage technical debt