103 Understanding Technical Debt

Presenter: Andrea Goulet

Technical debt gets accrued when you move fast and break things, which is awesome in the early stages of a startup. Left unchecked, technical debt can slow a development team to a grinding halt, frustrating founders and product owners. In this session, we'll demystify technical debt. You'll leave with a good understanding of what it is, when to accrue it, and how to pay it down.

Andrea Goulet is the CEO of Corgibytes, a software development shop dedicated to maintaining and modernizing software applications and has been named by LinkedIn as one of the top 10 professionals in software under 35. She’s the founder of LegacyCode.Rocks and hosts a podcast dedicated to changing the way we think about legacy code. She speaks frequently about building a business based on balance, empathy, and trust; the perils of the technical/non-technical divide; and the technical philosophies around working with legacy code.

In her spare time, Andrea enjoys hosting Free Code Camp events at her local co-working space and blogging at Empathy Driven Development. She loves watching her kids explore the world and is a sucker for a good physics documentary. You can recognize her by the JavaScript tattoo on her wrist.

1. UNDERSTANDING
TECHNICAL DEBT
@andreagoulet
ANDREA GOULET
CO-FOUNDER & CEO, CORGIBYTES

@ANDREAGOULET
CORGIBYTES.COM

2. WHO HERE…
KNOWS WHAT TECH
DEBT IS?
@andreagoulet

3. WHO HERE…
WANTS TO PREVENT
TECH DEBT?
@andreagoulet

4. WHO HERE…
WANTS TO PAY DOWN
EXISTING TECH DEBT?
@andreagoulet

5. @andreagoulet
SOFTWARE

REMODELING
We make existing
software more stable,
scalable, and secure.

6. @andreagoulet
AND WE ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT!

7. WHAT IS
TECHNICAL DEBT?
@andreagoulet

8. @andreagoulet
“Shipping first-time code is like going into debt. A
little debt speeds development so long as it is paid
back promptly with a rewrite. Objects make the cost of
this transaction tolerable.
The danger occurs when the debt is not repaid. Every
minute spent on not-quite-right code counts as
interest on that debt. Entire engineering organizations
can be brought to a stand-still under the debt load of
an unconsolidated implementation, object-oriented or
otherwise.”
-WARD CUNNINGHAM, 1992
Source: https://www.techopedia.com/definition/27913/technical-debt

9. HOW DOES TECH DEBT
GET ACCRUED?
@andreagoulet

10. “WHAT’S LAYERING?”
“NOW WE KNOW HOW WE
SHOULD HAVE DONE IT.”
“WE MUST SHIP NOW
AND DEAL WITH THE
CONSEQUENCES.”
“WE DON’T HAVE TIME
FOR DESIGN.”
@andreagoulet
DELIBERATE
INADVERTANT
MARTIN FOWLER’S TECH DEBT QUADRANT
RECKLESS PRUDENT
Source: https://martinfowler.com/bliki/TechnicalDebtQuadrant.html

11. OTHER METAPHORS
@andreagoulet

12. @mscottford
TECHNICAL HEALTH
- DECLAN WHEELAN

13. @mscottford
CLUTTER
- “UNCLE” BOB MARTIN

14. @mscottford
FEATURES AS PARTIES

15. @mscottford
ENERGY EFFICIENCY

16. WHEN IS 

TECH DEBT BAD?
@andreagoulet

17. @andreagoulet
PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE
SALES
Introduction Growth Maturity Decline
TIME

18. @andreagoulet
“WE’RE AGILE. IT NEEDS TO BE A CIRCLE.”
M. Scott Ford, Corgibytes CTO

19. @andreagoulet
PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE
GROWTH
MATURITY
DECLINE
INTRODUCTION

20. @andreagoulet
PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE
GROWTH
MATURITY
DECLINE
INTRODUCTION
TECH DEBT

PREVENTS INNOVATION

21. @andreagoulet
PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE
GROWTH
MATURITY
DECLINE
INTRODUCTION
TECH DEBT

PREVENTS SCALE
TECH DEBT

PREVENTS INNOVATION

22. @andreagoulet
PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE
GROWTH
MATURITY
INTRODUCTION
?????????
TECH DEBT

PREVENTS SCALE
TECH DEBT

PREVENTS INNOVATION

23. @andreagoulet
PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE
GROWTH
MATURITY
INTRODUCTION
REMODELING
TECH DEBT

PREVENTS SCALE
TECH DEBT

PREVENTS INNOVATION

24. @andreagoulet
PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE
GROWTH
MATURITY
INTRODUCTION
REMODELING
MAKERS
TECH DEBT

PREVENTS SCALE
TECH DEBT

PREVENTS INNOVATION

25. @andreagoulet
PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE
GROWTH
MATURITY
INTRODUCTION
REMODELING
MAKERS LOVE:
•Prototypes
•MVPs
•Feature Building
•Experimentation
MAKERS
TECH DEBT

PREVENTS SCALE
TECH DEBT

PREVENTS INNOVATION

26. @andreagoulet
PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE
GROWTH
MATURITY
INTRODUCTION
REMODELING
MAKERS
????????
MAKERS LOVE:
•Prototypes
•MVPs
•Feature Building
•Experimentation
TECH DEBT

PREVENTS SCALE
TECH DEBT

PREVENTS INNOVATION

27. @andreagoulet
PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE
GROWTH
MATURITY
REMODELING
INTRODUCTION
MAKERS
MENDERS
MAKERS LOVE:
•Prototypes
•MVPs
•Feature Building
•Experimentation
TECH DEBT

PREVENTS SCALE
TECH DEBT

PREVENTS INNOVATION

28. @andreagoulet
PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE
GROWTH
MATURITY
REMODELING
INTRODUCTION
MENDERS LOVE:
•Bug Fixes
•Refactoring
•Performance
•Security
•Scalability
MAKERS
MENDERS
MAKERS LOVE:
•Prototypes
•MVPs
•Feature Building
•Experimentation
TECH DEBT

PREVENTS SCALE
TECH DEBT

PREVENTS INNOVATION

29. @andreagoulet
PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE
GROWTH
MATURITY
REMODELING
INTRODUCTION
MAKERS
MENDERS
10% OF DEVELOPERS
MAKERS LOVE:
•Prototypes
•MVPs
•Feature Building
•Experimentation
TECH DEBT

PREVENTS SCALE
TECH DEBT

PREVENTS INNOVATION
MENDERS LOVE:
•Bug Fixes
•Refactoring
•Performance
•Security
•Scalability

30. @andreagoulet
WAIT A MINUTE! 

YOU MEAN I’M NOT ALONE?

31. @andreagoulet
WELCOME
FELLOW MENDERS!

32. @andreagoulet
NEWSLETTER: HTTP://LEGACYCODE.ROCKS
SLACK: HTTP://SLACK.LEGACYCODE.ROCKS
PODCAST: ITUNES & STITCHER

33. PRACTICES THAT CAUSE
TECH TEBT
@andreagoulet

34. @andreagoulet
•DUPLICATION (Copy/Pasting Code)
•COMPLEXITY (Number of Paths)
•POOR COMMUNICATION (naming, 

commits, docs, pull requests, etc.)
•NO TEST COVERAGE (use BDD and 

TDD to prevent tech debt from forming)
•SILOS IN TEAM (Conway’s Law - everyone

on team should code and communicate)

35. TOOLS FOR ANALYZING
TECH DEBT
@andreagoulet

36. @andreagoulet
•STATIC ANALYSIS
•Code Climate (Ruby, Python)
•NDepend (C#/.NET)
•SonarQube (Many, including Java)
•BitHound (JavaScript)
•OTHERS
•SonaType (OpenSource Licenses)
•Gemnasium (dependencies)
•RuboCop (ruby style guide)
•CodeShip (Continuous Delivery, 

Integration & Deployment)

37. SHOULD I STOP FEATURE
DEVELOPMENT TO PAY
TECH DEBT DOWN?
@andreagoulet

38. Make continuous improvement
and code cleanup a habit and
you won’t need to stop feature
development to pay down
technical debt.
@andreagoulet

39. @mscottford
BOY SCOUT RULE
- “UNCLE” BOB MARTIN
WHENEVER YOU
TOUCH YOUR CODE,
LEAVE IT BETTER
THAN YOU FOUND IT.

40. @andreagoulet
QUESTIONS?

41. UNDERSTANDING
TECHNICAL DEBT
@andreagoulet
ANDREA GOULET
CO-FOUNDER & CEO, CORGIBYTES

@ANDREAGOULET

CORGIBYTES.COM