Technical Debt: The Hidden Monster That’s Devouring Your Product

‍

You’re excited about launching a new feature, but have you ever wondered what price you’re paying in the form of technical debt? Don’t let this monster ruin your product.
‍

In digital product development, speed is essential. Meeting user and market expectations can lead to quick decisions, sacrificing code quality to meet deadlines. But this rush comes with an invisible cost: technical debt.

What is technical debt?

We can think of technical debt like financial debt: you take a loan today for an immediate benefit, but sooner or later, you’ll have to pay it back—with interest. In agile development, it’s common to prioritize launching a new feature quickly, leaving behind technical corrections or creating temporary solutions that, over time, turn into a bigger problem.

‍

Every time a development team takes a shortcut to reach the finish line quickly, technical debt increases. At first glance, it may seem like a viable solution to keep up with releases, but in the long term, that debt can become unsustainable.

‍

Symptoms of the technical debt monster

At first, you may not notice the signs, but the technical debt monster grows with every sprint. How do you know if it’s already affecting your product?

• Increase in bugs: Code that hasn’t been optimized or cleaned up tends to generate more bugs and errors. This not only affects the user experience but also slows down the development process.
• Slower development cycles: Over time, the code becomes harder to maintain, making it take longer for developers to implement new features. What was once an agile development cycle is now a cumbersome process.
• Scaling difficulties: When the codebase is fragile, the product can’t scale smoothly. Adding new features becomes a complicated and costly task.

‍

If you notice that bugs are multiplying, developers are frustrated because everything takes longer than it should, or your product isn’t scaling as expected, the technical debt monster is likely at work.

‍

How to manage and reduce technical debt

Not all is lost. Technical debt is inevitable to some extent, but it can be managed and reduced with the right strategies. Here are some practical steps:

• Regular code evaluations: Implementing regular code reviews is key to identifying problem areas and taking action before the debt becomes unmanageable. This practice not only improves code quality but also allows teams to prioritize areas that need refactoring.
• Dedicated time in sprints: Allocating a fixed percentage of each sprint to code improvement is an excellent way to fight technical debt. By including refactoring or technical corrections in the backlog, you can balance developing new features with maintaining product stability.
• Test automation: Investing in automated testing is one of the best ways to reduce technical debt in the long run. Continuous testing detects errors early and ensures that new code doesn’t break existing functionality, allowing teams to move forward without generating more debt.

‍

Final reflection

How big is the monster in your development team? Technical debt is something we all deal with at some point, but ignoring it isn’t an option. The sooner you start managing it, the more control you’ll have over your product’s growth and stability.

‍

Identifying and attacking technical debt today can save you from major issues tomorrow. Are you ready to face the monster?

‍