When tech debt adds up, it will also add up the human cost. In addition to that there are several other factors that you will need to consider once you detect tech debt in your codes. In due course of time, the code will start to function at a lower level and start acquiring interests that needs to be repaid.
When you have tech debt it will surely affect the development and growth of your business. It is for this reason you need to address tech debt immediately. If you leave tech debt unattended for long it will adds up to the cost refactoring which in turn will add up to the human cost involved in it once again.
Typically, there is no way to avoid or no shortcuts to deal with the death spiral of tech debt but you will need to overcome it for sure. There is no other alternative but to clean all bugs, defects, deficits and the drawbacks in your code as soon as possible. This will keep your code fully functional at all times and at the same time prevent your project to face a logjam.
Therefore, it is better and prudent to spend some time on a regular basis in checking and testing your codes so that you can save a lot of time by not having to refactor it frequently.
The human cost factor
If you are unhappy, you will not be able to work better as you will lose focus and motivation. This is human psychology and your team will also face similar effects when they are unhappy. It will cost you more which is why you will need to make sure that you maintain good practice to release a good and clean product instead of defective ones to maintain the time deadline.
- Since such faulty products will inevitably lead to technical debts asking for frequent factoring and reworking it will affect the morale of the team and make them unhappy.
- You will start losing your customers as well them as soon as you release a faulty product.
All these human costs will add up and cause a huge loss of revenue for your business. Therefore, it is necessary that you balance this human cost with the cost of reworking or refactoring and make a proper decision that will be beneficial for your business.
Moreover, when you have an unhappy team they will be disoriented and it will eventually increase the cost of production as well. Not only your team will be blamed for their inferior work but it will also result in carelessness in them. This will result in regular refactoring and repetitive work which will in turn result in loss of labor, time and money adding on to your cost of production. They may be reluctant to work in the given working condition.
There are lots of downsides when you release a defective code released in the market.
- It is bound to provide less productivity.
- This will in turn create a lot of confusions and frustrations among the users.
- It will also make the code become less productive with each passing day.
- It will handicap your business.
In short it will affect your business environment and work culture. There will be a lot of blame game with each team shirking away from their responsibilities.
- The development team will point fingers at the architectural team.
- They in turn will blame the sales team who will point fingers at the administration team.
- The administration team will blame the owner and the stakeholders who will cite the market and the consumers for insisting on an early release.
It is a chain that is hard to break. However, all these teams are responsible for the legacy but such blame game will result in a loss of valuable time as well as addition of cost in the line of production.
The turnover factor
You will also have to consider the cost of turnover wisely while determining the consequences of tech debt. It is your unhappy team and humans who will create an adverse effect on your business turnover. Their unpleasant and unhappy state of mind will never be able to design and deliver the best product that will result in business growth. In fact, it will slow the process down and you may even see more and more people leaving soon and this will affect the newcomers as well.
- Therefore, you will need to formulate the project or the technical tasks wisely.
- You are also required to make sure that your entire team is knowledgeable about the project.
- They must be kept aware about the need of a clean code and should not object to any user stories you want to use for the backlog elimination.
You must plan the prioritization simultaneously with the discussions with your development team so that you can reduce technical debt effectively in beneficial ways just as you reduce financial debts after reading the debt consolidation reviews.
When you can relate technical tasks with the user stories it is only then you will be able to assess the defects and efforts required for addressing the defects more carefully and successfully.
This will affect the turnover in a positive way because even the stakeholders will also understand the need of prioritizing technical tasks for the development of the code and deal with the backlogs.
To sum up
In order to ensure that everyone understands the need of a clean code just like you do, you will have to educate them about tech debts and its serious consequences to the business. You must not forget the stakeholders who are the most significant ones to influence your code development team to work in ways they should not simply to have the codes released before time.
Well, there may be sometimes when you will need to cut the corners and release a code early simply to stay in the race but in that case it is important for all to understand that the code needs to be monitored closely for the necessary developments.