Cody Morgan’s Post

Let's be honest about "technical debt"... Technical debt is often likened to a credit card 💳: borrow now, pay back later.  The key notion is that tech debt is something you eventually pay back. But here's the catch: it's rarely repaid.  😮💨 Imagine a poorly managed country endlessly borrowing until bankruptcy. That's the true nature of tech debt.  It's not about a team incurring debt today and settling it tomorrow - it's not a time-based thing. 👉 It's much deeper - it's about culture. There are teams with a 'tech debt culture' and those without. Teams steeped in tech debt culture often find themselves in a relentless cycle of borrowing, leading to a downward spiral in quality and efficiency. On the other hand, teams focused on excellence and quality demonstrate their commitment through robust engineering practices. They don't just pay lip service to quality; they embed it in their technical work. So, perhaps it's time to rebrand 'Tech Debt'. Instead of saying: "To deliver this feature quickly, we'll incur some tech debt." ... we should be honest about the implications: "To meet this deadline, we're adding irreversible bottlenecks to our system."

Financial Debt vs. Technical Debt Many of the terms and concepts we use in Software come from other domains such as Engineering, Finance, Mathematics, Languages, etc. The word for today is “debt”.. What is Debt? We borrow money to meet a current need, knowing we have to pay interest for it. This is Financial Debt. vs. In software, we borrow time as there is no real money. We do something the easy way to satisfy an urgent need, but it might make us spend more time (or resources) later to fix or improve it. This is Technical Debt. How is it measured? The interest, principal and taxes constitute the Financial Debt measurement metric. vs. We can’t see or measure technical debt well enough because it is implicit and may not be even known. It is very subjective and hard to quantify generically. Who pays the Debt? The borrower must pay off the debt. vs. The team on the project will have to pay off the technical debt, but it can make things worse if it is not done. When do we pay the Debt? We can pay it back early (foreclose) or regularly (EMI) vs. We don’t have a regular time for these things like we do for paying money back. Some teams do, most don't until a point things become hard to make progress. The longer the time taken to pay off the debt, the bigger is the “interest”. It applies to Technical Debt too, The longer we keep the technical debt, the more it costs us and the more it affects how our system works and how fast we can deliver on it. So, why don’t we have a timeline for paying tech debt? Can’t we dedicate one day per month to pay off the tech debt? Ideally, you want to be debt free, it’s hard but you could reduce it to a minimum. Focus on every commit you make, spare a thought on the debt. We need a “Tech Credit Score” too, it will give a good indicator to the project’s tech discipline and the borrowing capacity. What do you think? #technicaldebt #debtfree #techcreditscore #techdiscipline

Financial Debt, Credit Card Debt, Education Loan Debt, Medical Debt, Technical Debt. Crux of the matter is whether it is Good debt or Bad debt. "Good tech debt can be described as the debt incurred to foster growth and innovation without significantly affecting your business. Conversely, bad software debt hinders business performance as it impedes the innovation, agility, and growth your software underpins, whether developed recently or years ago." Addressing the matter starts with the how ? Read about the the 8% approach....vis a vis the capability of "mapping" the Software landscape Worth a read , courtesy of author Vincent Delaroche

🛠️ Don't fear "technical debt"! 💰 Just like financial loans, it can be a strategic decision for faster progress. 💡 Embrace it wisely, manage it effectively, and plan for repayment. 🚀 🔍 When it comes to tech debt, asking the right questions is key! 💡 Instead of focusing solely on prevention, let's delve deeper: 💡 When is it beneficial to accumulate tech debt? 💼 How do we manage existing tech debt? #TechDebt #SoftwareDevelopment #Innovation #Strategy 🖥️💰

Tech debt is called debt for a reason but nobody really thinks about it in the same way as financial debt. Allow me to explain..... Financial debt: - You have income and ability to repay debt - You take out a loan at a certain interest - You invest the borrowed money in the hope of benefits - If your income stays the same and the interest continutally increases, there will come a time where the interest is so high you will not be able to repay the loan and you go bankrupt Tech debt - You have a limited number of developers - You create tech debt as you work - You have the ability to schedule work to address some of the tech debt - If you don't, and continue to work, there will come a time when there are too many defects, bugs, other issues, new projects being created, the capacity of the dev team will never be enough to repay the tech debt that is being created. Even if you spend 100% of your capactiy, it won't be enough to pay off the "interest" on the tech debt loan and the project will go "bankrupt" due to the amount of tech debt. How do you approach your tech debt issues? #productmanagement #prdmgmt

"Technical debt is debt — you take shortcuts now, but you pay the price later with interest." But that metaphor is broken, here's why: 🤔 When you take on financial debt, the cost is clear. You know the interest rate, and you can predict how much you’ll owe in the end. 📈 Technical debt isn’t like that. It’s more like hidden friction that slows down your development over time. The impact isn’t predictable — it accumulates unpredictably and compounds in ways you can’t fully anticipate. As it gets worse, so does the time required to fix it. The truth is, tech debt is inevitable in any fast-paced environment. The key isn’t to avoid it but to keep it in check: 1. Identify your weak spots: Always know where your subpar code lives. Keep a clear map of your known friction points. 🗺️ 2. Track delivery times: The only reliable metric for tech debt is how much it’s slowing you down. Establish an average throughput you’re happy with and use deviations from that to gauge the impact of your debt. ⏲️ 3. Apply the Boy Scout Rule: Whenever you touch a piece of code, leave it a bit cleaner than you found it — but only where you’re already making changes. Don't get bogged down refactoring unrelated parts. It’s about incremental improvement, not perfection. 🧹 At the end of the day, tech debt is only a problem if it’s affecting your ability to deliver. Optimize for speed, but never lose sight of where the friction is creeping in. 🚀 --- 🔧 Transforming Business Challenges into Scalable, Impact-Driven Solutions 💡 👉 If you're facing challenges with tech debt or optimizing your development process, let's connect! I'd love to hear your thoughts and exchange insights. #TechDebt #CTO #CleanCode #TechLeadership

Who’s afraid of tech debt? Almost everyone, according to my years of experience building products across multiple companies. But it’s wrongheaded to fear tech debt. Instead, growing companies should mindfully embrace it. Accumulating tech debt is a natural consequence of the velocity at which modern business moves. When you’re iterating rapidly and racing to beat competitors to market, you make some inevitable trade-offs with things like code quality, documentation, and technical best practices. In short, a certain amount of tech debt is the cost of validating ideas quickly in the marketplace. So how can business leaders make conscious choices about the debt they accumulate to avoid ultimately drowning in it? The key is quantifying tech debt in order to make informed trade-offs. Technical leaders need to have visibility into how much debt they have, where it’s concentrated, and how it impacts velocity over time. With this information on hand, leaders can take a measured approach to paying down debt where it matters most while accepting it in less critical areas. Tech debt doesn’t have to be a boogeyman. If it’s managed mindfully, the right amount of tech debt can be a key ingredient in a company’s adaptability and speed.

When managed right, tech debt gives you an edge 💡 We all know tech debt can slow down development, increase costs, and frustrate teams. But here’s the truth: tech debt isn’t always bad. Sometimes, it’s a smart strategic tool. Not all code needs to be perfect. When you’re shipping an MVP or racing to capture market share, a little tech debt can help you move fast and test ideas. Think of it like a loan—you’ll have to pay it back, but it can get you where you need to go faster. The key is knowing when to pay it off before it buries your project. When tech debt is intentional, with a clear plan for repayment, it can fuel innovation and give you a competitive edge. The problem isn’t the debt—it’s ignoring it or pretending it’s not there. Tech debt isn’t always the villain, but if you don’t manage it, it will become one. 💬 How does your team handle tech debt? Is it part of your strategy? #TechDebt #SoftwareDevelopment #Agile #Productivity #EngineeringLeadership

I think a good deal of mitigating technical debt can come from experience and an acquired sense of professionalism. When you are just starting, you follow the norms of the other developers and respond to the incentives and priorities set by your managers - fair enough. But as you gain technical expertise and learn more about what quality work and good work processes look like, you can have the perspective to push back - because realistically, management (i.e. the people who make budgets) do not know how to build software. That is what you are there for. So a software engineer with significant experience will know better how to express that management's expectations are unrealistic (because they will be), or that the requested implementation would be unmaintainable, or that the initial design sketch would not actually be able to meet the expected SLA. Would you rather have someone who does what you need, or someone who does what you ask for? 😁