How Technical Debt is Like Financial Debt

Q: What is “technical debt” and why should I care?

A: Technical debt is a fancy term for the extra development work that comes down the road as a result of prioritizing speed over quality when developers write code. While it sounds negative, it doesn’t mean those priorities were wrong. There may well have been legitimate reasons why getting the work done quickly was more important at the time than writing elegant code.

Think of it as interest to be paid on financial debt. Again, there are typically valid reasons to take on financial debt that make the interest to be paid worth it.

That said, systems with a lot of technical debt are more prone to problems over time—unexpected errors or slow performance that impact your team’s productivity, for example.

If your systems have technical debt (and, by the way, they almost certainly do), you may want to consider addressing it little by little over time, kind of like paying down the principle to reduce or eliminate future interest costs.

The value of cleaning up technical debt depends on your particular situation, but having a plan to tackle it can help you maximize your investment for the long run.

Ask your development team how they approach, track and fix technical debt. With this information at your disposal, you can plan for technical debt reduction like you would any other financial decision.