Development
7 Causes of Technical Debt and How to Avoid It
25 September 2017
Follow @scottgraffius
This is a brief introduction to technical debt—including top causes and how to avoid it.
Technical debt (also known as code debt and design debt) is a term used to describe the eventual consequences of a technical design or development choice made for a short-term benefit but with subsequent consequences. An example is writing suboptimal code to meet a deadline, knowing that the code will have to be rewritten later to make the software maintainable.
Technical debt may have one or more causes, such as:
1. Time pressures
2. Overly complex technical design
3. Poor alignment to standards
4. Lack of skill
5. Suboptimal code
6. Delayed refactoring
7. Insufficient testing
Over time, those factors result in the accumulation of technical inefficiencies that need to be serviced in the future. Unchecked technical debt may make the software more expensive to change than to re-implement.
Technical debt can be avoided or minimized by not taking shortcuts, using simple designs, and refactoring continuously. When there’s technical debt, the team should make the items visible by registering entries in the product release backlog, where the matters will be evaluated and prioritized for resolution.
Controlling technical debt (when others don't) can be a competitive advantage.
This content is an abridged excerpt from the award-winning book, Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions, offered in digital and print formats.
The ebook (ASIN: B01FZ0JIIY) is available in:
The paperback (ISBN-13: 9781533370242) is for sale at:
For press, please visit AgileScrumGuide.com.
© Copyright 2017 Scott M. Graffius. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the express written permission of Scott M. Graffius.
This is a brief introduction to technical debt—including top causes and how to avoid it.
Technical debt (also known as code debt and design debt) is a term used to describe the eventual consequences of a technical design or development choice made for a short-term benefit but with subsequent consequences. An example is writing suboptimal code to meet a deadline, knowing that the code will have to be rewritten later to make the software maintainable.
Technical debt may have one or more causes, such as:
1. Time pressures
2. Overly complex technical design
3. Poor alignment to standards
4. Lack of skill
5. Suboptimal code
6. Delayed refactoring
7. Insufficient testing
Over time, those factors result in the accumulation of technical inefficiencies that need to be serviced in the future. Unchecked technical debt may make the software more expensive to change than to re-implement.
Technical debt can be avoided or minimized by not taking shortcuts, using simple designs, and refactoring continuously. When there’s technical debt, the team should make the items visible by registering entries in the product release backlog, where the matters will be evaluated and prioritized for resolution.
Controlling technical debt (when others don't) can be a competitive advantage.
This content is an abridged excerpt from the award-winning book, Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions, offered in digital and print formats.
The ebook (ASIN: B01FZ0JIIY) is available in:
- Australia,
- Brazil,
- Canada,
- France,
- Germany,
- India,
- Italy,
- Japan,
- Mexico,
- the Netherlands,
- Spain,
- the United Kingdom, and
- the United States.
The paperback (ISBN-13: 9781533370242) is for sale at:
- Amazon,
- Barnes & Noble,
- Strand Books,
- Harvard Book Store,
- Books-a-Million,
- The Booksmith,
- Hudson Booksellers,
- Savoy Bookshop & Café,
- Compass Books at SFO/Books Inc.,
- Books & Books - Miami,
- University Press Books - Berkeley,
- and other retailers and partners in the United States and around the world.
For press, please visit AgileScrumGuide.com.
© Copyright 2017 Scott M. Graffius. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the express written permission of Scott M. Graffius.
Scott M. Graffius Speaking at DevOps Pro Europe Conference
25 February 2021
Follow @scottgraffius
🔥 Update: The DevOps Pro 2021 Conference recorded sessions. The video for Scott's talk is included at the end of this post.
Scott M. Graffius will be speaking at the 6th annual Vilnius, Lithuania-based DevOps Pro Europe Conference. This year, speakers and attendees can participate in-person or online. Scott will lead the session “But First, the Team!”
📍 Vilnius and online
🗓 Thursday, May 13, 2021
🕓 Pacific Time: 4:00-4:50 a.m. PT
🕚 Greenwich Mean Time: 11:00-11:50 a.m. GMT
🕑 Eastern European Time: 2:00-2:50 p.m. EET
🎟 https://devopspro.lt
Attendees may be eligible to receive continuing education unit (CEU) credit, equivalent to 0.75 hour. For reporting with the Project Management Institute (PMI), it's 0.75 professional development unit (PDU), under the Leadership category. For reporting with the Scrum Alliance, it's 0.75 Scrum educational unit (SEU), under either the Learning category or the Events category. For reporting with other organizations, refer to their respective instructions.
About Scott M. Graffius
Scott M. Graffius, PMP, CSP-SM, CSP-PO, CSM, CSPO, SFE, LSSGB, ITIL | High resolution photo available here
Follow @scottgraffius
Scott M. Graffius, PMP, CSP-SM, CSP-PO, CSM, CSPO, SFE, ITIL, LSSGB is an agile project management practitioner, consultant, award-winning author, and international speaker. He has generated over one billion dollars of business value in aggregate for the organizations he has served. Graffius is the founder, CEO, and principal consultant at Exceptional PPM and PMO Solutions™ and subsidiary Exceptional Agility™, based in Los Angeles, California. His expertise spans project, program, portfolio, and PMO leadership inclusive of agile, traditional, and hybrid approaches. Content from his books, workshops, speaking engagements, and more have been featured and used by businesses, governments, and universities including Gartner, Microsoft, Deloitte, Oracle, Cisco, Ford, Qantas, Atlassian, Bayer, the National Academy of Sciences, the United States Department of Energy, the United States Army, Project Management Institute, the IEEE, the New Zealand Ministry of Education, Tufts University, Texas A&M University, Virginia Tech, Penn State, Warsaw University of Technology, University of Waterloo, Loughborough University London, and others. Graffius has spoken at 58 conferences and other events around the world, including Armenia, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, United Kingdom, and the United States. Thinkers360 named Graffius a global top thought leader and influencer in four domains: Agile, Change Management, Digital Transformation, and GovTech.
His full bio is available at https://www.scottgraffius.com.
Connect with Scott on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
About DevOps Pro Europe 2021
The DevOps Pro Europe conference—now in its 6th year—is the leading event where DevOps mindset, skills, and tools converge. The conference covers the core principles and concepts of the DevOps methodology and demonstrates how to use best DevOps patterns to develop, deploy, and maintain applications on-premises and in the cloud.
The conference covers a diverse range of topics, including:
The annual event attracts Developers, IT Professionals, IT Managers, and others involved with or interested in DevOps.
To learn more and to register for the event, visit https://devopspro.lt.
Update on May 20, 2021
For the speaker and paid attendees, the conference recorded the session and published it as an unlisted (private) video. Scott's talk is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfc-PRuR8z4 and the video is also shown below.
© Copyright 2021 Scott M. Graffius. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the express written permission of Scott M. Graffius.
🔥 Update: The DevOps Pro 2021 Conference recorded sessions. The video for Scott's talk is included at the end of this post.
Scott M. Graffius will be speaking at the 6th annual Vilnius, Lithuania-based DevOps Pro Europe Conference. This year, speakers and attendees can participate in-person or online. Scott will lead the session “But First, the Team!”
📍 Vilnius and online
🗓 Thursday, May 13, 2021
🕓 Pacific Time: 4:00-4:50 a.m. PT
🕚 Greenwich Mean Time: 11:00-11:50 a.m. GMT
🕑 Eastern European Time: 2:00-2:50 p.m. EET
🎟 https://devopspro.lt
Attendees may be eligible to receive continuing education unit (CEU) credit, equivalent to 0.75 hour. For reporting with the Project Management Institute (PMI), it's 0.75 professional development unit (PDU), under the Leadership category. For reporting with the Scrum Alliance, it's 0.75 Scrum educational unit (SEU), under either the Learning category or the Events category. For reporting with other organizations, refer to their respective instructions.
About Scott M. Graffius
Scott M. Graffius, PMP, CSP-SM, CSP-PO, CSM, CSPO, SFE, LSSGB, ITIL | High resolution photo available here
Follow @scottgraffius
Scott M. Graffius, PMP, CSP-SM, CSP-PO, CSM, CSPO, SFE, ITIL, LSSGB is an agile project management practitioner, consultant, award-winning author, and international speaker. He has generated over one billion dollars of business value in aggregate for the organizations he has served. Graffius is the founder, CEO, and principal consultant at Exceptional PPM and PMO Solutions™ and subsidiary Exceptional Agility™, based in Los Angeles, California. His expertise spans project, program, portfolio, and PMO leadership inclusive of agile, traditional, and hybrid approaches. Content from his books, workshops, speaking engagements, and more have been featured and used by businesses, governments, and universities including Gartner, Microsoft, Deloitte, Oracle, Cisco, Ford, Qantas, Atlassian, Bayer, the National Academy of Sciences, the United States Department of Energy, the United States Army, Project Management Institute, the IEEE, the New Zealand Ministry of Education, Tufts University, Texas A&M University, Virginia Tech, Penn State, Warsaw University of Technology, University of Waterloo, Loughborough University London, and others. Graffius has spoken at 58 conferences and other events around the world, including Armenia, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, United Kingdom, and the United States. Thinkers360 named Graffius a global top thought leader and influencer in four domains: Agile, Change Management, Digital Transformation, and GovTech.
His full bio is available at https://www.scottgraffius.com.
Connect with Scott on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
About DevOps Pro Europe 2021
The DevOps Pro Europe conference—now in its 6th year—is the leading event where DevOps mindset, skills, and tools converge. The conference covers the core principles and concepts of the DevOps methodology and demonstrates how to use best DevOps patterns to develop, deploy, and maintain applications on-premises and in the cloud.
The conference covers a diverse range of topics, including:
- DevOps Approach – Continuous Delivery, Continuous Integration, Configuration Management, Automated testing, and Deployment.
- DevOps Technologies – Virtualization, Containerization, Orchestration, Microservices, and Cloud Computing (AWS, Azure, and OpenStack).
- DevOps Tools – Docker, Chef, Puppet, PowerShell, Kubernetes, GitHub, Ansible, SaltStack, Capistrano, and Jenkins.
- DevOps Real World Experience – technology adoption examples, real life implementation scenarios, best practices, and insights from thought leaders and influencers.
The annual event attracts Developers, IT Professionals, IT Managers, and others involved with or interested in DevOps.
To learn more and to register for the event, visit https://devopspro.lt.
Update on May 20, 2021
For the speaker and paid attendees, the conference recorded the session and published it as an unlisted (private) video. Scott's talk is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfc-PRuR8z4 and the video is also shown below.
© Copyright 2021 Scott M. Graffius. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the express written permission of Scott M. Graffius.
Scott M. Graffius Speaking at Frug'Agile Conference Armenia and France 2021
21 September 2021
Follow @scottgraffius
Scott M. Graffius will speak at October 2021 edition of Frug'Agile Conference (Photo of Khor Virap monastery in the shadow of Mount Ararat by Andrew Behesnilian; used under license, CC BY-SA 3.0)
🔥 Update: The Frug'Agile Conference recorded sessions and made the videos available to the public. The video of Scott's talk is included at the end of this post.
Scott M. Graffius will be speaking at the October 2021 edition of Frug’Agile. The conference will take place in Armenia and France, attendees can participate in-person or virtually, and sessions will be delivered in French or English. Scott will present “The Journey to Happier and More Productive Agile Teams” — in English — on Friday, October 15th at:
🕖 Armenia Time: 7:00-8:00 p.m. AT
🕔 Central European Time: 5:00-6:00 p.m. CET
🕗 Pacific Time: 8:00-9:00 a.m. PT
Attendees may be eligible to receive continuing education unit (CEU) credit, equivalent to 1.00 Professional Development Hour (PDH). For reporting with the Project Management Institute (PMI), it's 1.00 Professional Development Unit (PDU), under the Leadership category. For reporting with the Scrum Alliance, it's 1.00 Scrum Educational Unit (SEU), under either the Learning category or the Events category. For reporting with other organizations, refer to their respective instructions.
To learn more and to secure tickets for the conference, visit https://www.frugagile.org.
About Scott M. Graffius
Scott M. Graffius, PMP, CSP-SM, CSP-PO, CSM, CSPO, SFE, LSSGB, ITIL | High resolution photo available here
Follow @scottgraffius
Scott M. Graffius, PMP, CSP-SM, CSP-PO, CSM, CSPO, SFE, ITIL, LSSGB is an agile project management practitioner, consultant, award-winning author, and international speaker. He has generated over one billion dollars of business value in aggregate for the organizations he has served. Graffius is the founder, CEO, and principal consultant at Exceptional PPM and PMO Solutions™ and subsidiary Exceptional Agility™, based in Los Angeles, California. His expertise spans project, program, portfolio, and PMO leadership inclusive of agile, traditional, and hybrid approaches. Content from his books, workshops, speaking engagements, and more have been featured and used by businesses, governments, and universities including Gartner, Microsoft, Deloitte, Oracle, Cisco, Ford, Qantas, Atlassian, Bayer, the National Academy of Sciences, the United States Department of Energy, the United States Army, Project Management Institute, the IEEE, the New Zealand Ministry of Education, Tufts University, Texas A&M University, Virginia Tech, Penn State, Warsaw University of Technology, University of Waterloo, Loughborough University London, and others. Graffius has spoken at 58 conferences and other events around the world, including Armenia, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, United Kingdom, and the United States. Thinkers360 named Graffius a global top thought leader and influencer in four domains: Agile, Change Management, Digital Transformation, and GovTech.
His full bio is available at https://www.scottgraffius.com.
Connect with Scott on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
About Frug’Agile Conference
Frug’Agile 2021 is a global conference on agile. The theme for this edition is "back to basics," and it runs from October 14-15. The conference features speakers from Armenia, France, and around the world. Sessions will be presented in either French or English, and attendees may participate in-person — from venues in Armenia or France — or virtually.
To learn more about Frug’Agile, visit https://www.frugagile.org.
Update on November 13, 2021
If you missed the event, recordings of sessions are now available on YouTube. Scott's talk is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewokhrpMCIE and the video is also shown below.
The short link for this blog post is: https://bit.ly/frug-21
The short link for a related post on LinkedIn is: https://bit.ly/frug-in
© Copyright 2021 Scott M. Graffius. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the express written permission of Scott M. Graffius.
Scott M. Graffius will speak at October 2021 edition of Frug'Agile Conference (Photo of Khor Virap monastery in the shadow of Mount Ararat by Andrew Behesnilian; used under license, CC BY-SA 3.0)
🔥 Update: The Frug'Agile Conference recorded sessions and made the videos available to the public. The video of Scott's talk is included at the end of this post.
Scott M. Graffius will be speaking at the October 2021 edition of Frug’Agile. The conference will take place in Armenia and France, attendees can participate in-person or virtually, and sessions will be delivered in French or English. Scott will present “The Journey to Happier and More Productive Agile Teams” — in English — on Friday, October 15th at:
🕖 Armenia Time: 7:00-8:00 p.m. AT
🕔 Central European Time: 5:00-6:00 p.m. CET
🕗 Pacific Time: 8:00-9:00 a.m. PT
Attendees may be eligible to receive continuing education unit (CEU) credit, equivalent to 1.00 Professional Development Hour (PDH). For reporting with the Project Management Institute (PMI), it's 1.00 Professional Development Unit (PDU), under the Leadership category. For reporting with the Scrum Alliance, it's 1.00 Scrum Educational Unit (SEU), under either the Learning category or the Events category. For reporting with other organizations, refer to their respective instructions.
To learn more and to secure tickets for the conference, visit https://www.frugagile.org.
About Scott M. Graffius
Scott M. Graffius, PMP, CSP-SM, CSP-PO, CSM, CSPO, SFE, LSSGB, ITIL | High resolution photo available here
Follow @scottgraffius
Scott M. Graffius, PMP, CSP-SM, CSP-PO, CSM, CSPO, SFE, ITIL, LSSGB is an agile project management practitioner, consultant, award-winning author, and international speaker. He has generated over one billion dollars of business value in aggregate for the organizations he has served. Graffius is the founder, CEO, and principal consultant at Exceptional PPM and PMO Solutions™ and subsidiary Exceptional Agility™, based in Los Angeles, California. His expertise spans project, program, portfolio, and PMO leadership inclusive of agile, traditional, and hybrid approaches. Content from his books, workshops, speaking engagements, and more have been featured and used by businesses, governments, and universities including Gartner, Microsoft, Deloitte, Oracle, Cisco, Ford, Qantas, Atlassian, Bayer, the National Academy of Sciences, the United States Department of Energy, the United States Army, Project Management Institute, the IEEE, the New Zealand Ministry of Education, Tufts University, Texas A&M University, Virginia Tech, Penn State, Warsaw University of Technology, University of Waterloo, Loughborough University London, and others. Graffius has spoken at 58 conferences and other events around the world, including Armenia, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, United Kingdom, and the United States. Thinkers360 named Graffius a global top thought leader and influencer in four domains: Agile, Change Management, Digital Transformation, and GovTech.
His full bio is available at https://www.scottgraffius.com.
Connect with Scott on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
About Frug’Agile Conference
Frug’Agile 2021 is a global conference on agile. The theme for this edition is "back to basics," and it runs from October 14-15. The conference features speakers from Armenia, France, and around the world. Sessions will be presented in either French or English, and attendees may participate in-person — from venues in Armenia or France — or virtually.
To learn more about Frug’Agile, visit https://www.frugagile.org.
Update on November 13, 2021
If you missed the event, recordings of sessions are now available on YouTube. Scott's talk is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewokhrpMCIE and the video is also shown below.
The short link for this blog post is: https://bit.ly/frug-21
The short link for a related post on LinkedIn is: https://bit.ly/frug-in
© Copyright 2021 Scott M. Graffius. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the express written permission of Scott M. Graffius.