Releasing the Stranglehold of Technical Debt

Perhaps the single most frustrating issue for IT management today is the problem of technical debt. This problem wastes both time and resources when it must be dealt with. It grows when organizations let expediency drive decisions to stick with less expensive legacy technology rather than investing in development technologies that better support the dynamic nature of modern apps.

As with all debt, the bill for technical debt eventually comes due. When the scope of changes facing development and operations far exceeds the dev resources, IT teams must focus on taking steps that can eliminate actions creating additional technical debt. However, simply stopping the sources of debt creation isn’t enough to solve the problem. It is necessary to make changes moving forward that will not create additional liability.

When it becomes necessary to get out of debt, three technology solutions should be considered:

• Microservices/Kubernetes — These technologies are characterized by the ability to easily reuse or modify individual services or containers without major changes to the underlying applications. Technical debt is reduced because the amount of rework is greatly reduced and because services developed in one project can be easily reused in another.
• Fluid data designs —The legacy approach of populating every app with its own data has been rejected in modern IT. Instead, data is not bound to an application or dev effort and so can be easily repurposed for new apps by using automated tools. If a dataset is useful in many different apps, having to extract and integrate it manually is just another source of technical debt.
• API management solutions —A methodical way of connecting data, devices, systems, and applications via reusable APIs improves speed and efficiency while avoiding locked-down segments or components. Deploying modern API management solutions improves the ability to share and leverage APIs, increasing their “asset value”.

Organizations that want to reduce technical debt need a holistic approach to the issue that includes understanding what it is; what new tools, solutions, and technologies should be pursued; and what existing systems need to be upgraded. This must be done with alacrity, as many legacy approaches are increasing the debt load IT faces every single day.

Maverick Technology Partners has the experience, skills, and understanding to help your organization reduce technical debt and introduce new processes that will reduce or eliminate it in the future. Contact Maverick for assistance with your company’s DevOps strategy.

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