5 strategies for managing technical debt before it’s too late
Tech debt is like the household chore that you keep putting off. The longer you wait, the more it builds up, and the more difficult it becomes to clean.
And yet, only 27 percent of product teams surveyed dedicate time to clean up tech debt. This often creates frustration between product managers and engineers.
When tech debt isn’t addressed, it causes slow product development, increases maintenance costs, and puts product reliability at risk.
In this article, we’ll address common challenges, tips, and five strategies that product managers can use to manage technical debt.
1. Add relevant tech debt to the sprint
Vamsee Chamakura, VP of Product, Web at Speechify, thinks managers should embrace opportunities to eliminate tech debt along with working on the project. “It’s a two-birds-one-stone situation,” he says in his Leadership Spotlight.
Speechify was working on a significant refactor project to improve the time-to-listen for document uploads on the app. Along the way, the team also worked on eliminating relevant tech debt.
When planning a sprint, identify relevant tech debt tasks and specific backlog tickets. This allows your team to whittle down tech debt one sprint at a time.
“…whenever we touch a product, we fix any associated technical debt as part of the project,” says Jessyca Frederick, Director of Digital Content at Wine Enthusiast. She also notes that leadership buy-in has given her the freedom to approach tech debt this way.
Some stakeholders may view tech debt reduction as a big project. But you can break it down into incremental tasks. It’s easier to advocate for smaller tasks instead of trying to get stakeholders to agree to a large overhaul.
2. Make tech debt a measurable metric
Stakeholders are often not on the same page about addressing tech debt. To them, it can look like invisible tasks that don’t have an impact on the business.
“The problem with tech debt is that a lot of people struggle to attribute solving tech debt to a measurable metric,” said Chamakura. “That’s why we want to make sure that it’s measurable and conveyable to stakeholders so we can justify why we’re spending time on it.”
Here are a few metrics to consider when product managers need to convince stakeholders that managing tech debt is good for the business:
- Engineering productivity
- Developer sentiment
- Maintenance costs
- Product velocity trends
- Feature delivery speed
- Code quality indicators
- Technical debt ratio
Using these metrics, you can position tech debt as an investment and not an invisible maintenance task.
3. Regularly evaluate tech debt
Alex Weinsten, Chief Digital Officer at Hungryroot, cautions against falling into tech debt extremes.
On one side, the engineering team may say it can’t ship anything new for three months because they need to rebuild a component from scratch. The other side is to never pay down technical debt, which can cause constant interruptions and slower productivity.
“Instead of these extremes, I advise regularly evaluating tech debt and infrastructure needs and handling these as a part of the regular roadmap work,” says Weinstein.
Start by evaluating the risk of technical debt. Analyze its performance, maintainability, and scalability. From there, conduct a cost-benefit analysis to compare the costs of addressing technical debt to developing new features.
One of the toughest jobs of a product manager is feature prioritization. Consider tech debt as one of the features that gets consideration.
Weinstein suggests dedicating 5-20 percent of the engineering team’s time to make sure the future isn’t mortgaged. “This, of course, requires a strong technical voice to be the counterweight of the business asks and alignment of the whole team to operate against long-term goals,” he concludes.
4. Bring in the tech lead
Product managers have a habit of ignoring tech debt, especially if there’s no one advocating for the product’s technical needs.
There are many benefits to having a tech lead involved early in the product development process. They can provide unique insights into feature ideas. They can also identify possible blocks and alternative options.
Regular collaboration helps you identify and prioritize tech debt backlog items. Tech leads can use prioritization frameworks, like RICE, to evaluate each debt item.
Building strong relationships means that both teams can find a balance between short-term delivery and long-term health.
5. Create dedicated time for tech debt
Teams may not have the time to dedicate a full sprint to managing tech debt. But you can still schedule mini-sprints to focus on remediation.
Dan Scandinaro, SVP of Engineering and Data at Cameo, explains how the company hosts quarterly “bug bashes.” He describes it as a two-day event where engineers can prioritize tasks outside their biweekly product sprints.
“Given the amount of code that we have, any project that we can prioritize to pay down that technical debt is almost an innovation in itself,” says Sandinario. “That enables us to make the site much faster, leading to higher rankings on Google and better SEO, and also just making it easier for our engineers in their day-to-day (work).”
Some other benefits of a dedicated mini-sprint for tech debt include:
- Avoids distractions from feature work
- Increase productivity by removing context switching
- Empowers engineers to tackle deep or complex issues
Common challenges of managing technical debt (and how to solve them)
When it comes to addressing tech debt, you might find that you run into some difficulties. Let’s take a look at the challenges and a quick peek at their solutions:
- Lack of stakeholder awareness — Stakeholders may not have a tech background and don’t understand the need to address tech debt. You need to present how reducing tech debt provides business value. You should also keep stakeholders updated on progress and share stories on how it’s helping the product
- Competing priorities — When tech debt isn’t prioritized, it gets neglected and continues to grow. Consider putting tech debt alongside feature work when conducting prioritization frameworks. It boosts the chance of getting tech debt addressed. You might also need to advocate for keeping dedicated time in sprints to manage tech debt
- Difficulty quantifying technical debt — Use metrics to make tech debt “visible.” It helps gauge the current workload and what progress is happening. Measure product velocity, maintenance costs, and the technical debt ratio to quantify tech debt
- Misalignment between product and engineering — The product-engineering relationship is more than just a project handoff. Continuous collaboration ensures engineers can address their work, participate in planning, and build trust
- Limited time and resources — Your company might not have the means to address tech debt head-on. However, you can’t ignore tech debt forever. It’ll continue to build and cause issues
- Tech debt lacking visibility — Tech debt isn’t as flashy as a new AI-driven feature, which means it’s easy to dismiss it as a low priority. One way to add visibility is to show how reducing tech debt improves product quality, employee productivity, and customer satisfaction
Key takeaways
As a PM, the good news is that you have plenty of options to address tech debt. Your engineering team will thank you for making their jobs easier, and customers will appreciate an efficient product.
Sustainable product success relies on proactive and structured approaches. Start applying these strategies to reduce tech debt and reduce downstream risks. Good luck, and comment with any questions!
Featured image source: IconScout
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