What is technical debt and how can I avoid it?
Bella Sekhwela, internal audit expert at Discovery Bank, warns that choosing speed over quality when it comes to software development accumulates technical debt and inhibits the ability to compete and innovate.
Mr Sekwela will be speaking at the ITWeb Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) 2024 event on February 20th at the Forum in Bryanston.
She discusses the impact of unpaid technical debt on business operations and highlights the serious consequences that can occur if it is ignored.
“Technical debt is a measure of the cost of reworking a solution that results from choosing a simple but limited solution. The most significant consequence of complex technical debt is that it hinders a company's competitiveness. It takes away an organization's resources, time, energy and ability to innovate, adapt and grow,” says Sekwela.
How do companies get into this position? In the pursuit of expediency, Sekwera says, companies accumulate technical debt by deferring or overlooking important work, only to have to deal with it later. It points out that they will be forced to repay the debt and face potential repercussions.
“As a result, companies typically choose speed over quality and end up paying for it in time, money and resources,” she added.
Sekwela says IT project management illustrates her point.
“Companies that take a long time to deliver an IT project end up either abandoning the project because it is no longer relevant, or leaving it alone because they want to have a more disruptive impact with another idea.” You either let it go. Sometimes you deprioritize the project for good reason, or you complete it so quickly that you forget to “polish it” and end up with the minimum viable product. Sometimes. ”
The product may be deployed quickly and be first to market, but it comes at a cost, and that cost is technical debt.
“Often times, especially in traditional companies, we find that technical debt is the result of very old applications, and developers spend time fixing problems,” Sekwela explains.
The longer the debt lasts, the more expensive it will be to correct it.
She will take a deep dive into the causes of technical debt, what scenarios will continue to emerge in the future, and what are the best ways for business leaders to effectively address this issue.
Click the link below for more information and to register.
ITWeb GRC 2024
