Tech Debt Series Part I: All About Tech Debt

Most people understand the concept of debt. Financing is a common way for people to make large purchases, like a home or car. Governing bodies across the globe deal with debt. Most people associate debt with money. You borrow some, you pay it back, usually with interest. But what most people don’t know is that there is such a thing as technological debt. This is the first installment of a three-part series on tech debt.

Let’s back up for a minute. When a teenager gets his or her first credit card, they have no concept of what it really is or how it works, especially if no one talks to them about it. So they use it to buy things, shop online, download songs, whatever else they deem necessary and they run up a bill. They look at a credit card as free money, that they can just keep using the card and someone else will pay the bill down the line or they’ll have money for the bill down the line. This is the worst possible way a teenager can learn about credit.

The problem is, we also often see this with adults. In emergency situations, adults will use a credit card. And if it’s a high interest credit card and they’re only making the minimum payment each month, it can take 70 years to pay down that card.

This is exactly how tech debt works. It’s like running around with a credit card and only making the minimum payment, if any payment is made at all. Except with tech debt instead of new shoes, it’s not updating or maintaining systems. Instead of a new video game, it’s not updating code or not patching code. Instead of an ER visti, it’s not migrating to new systems to do all of this, because it takes effort and costs money.

Startups and big businesses take the approach that if they don’t do those things, then they can spend the money on something else. The problem is, as we have discussed in the past, if you don’t update systems and you don’t patch code, if you neglect code quality and go quick and dirty, you become insecure unstable and fragile. It works like interest.

The longer those items sit there, the higher risk they become. And, eventually, the tech debt collectors are going to come. Except they don’t ask for money. The tech debt collectors are your website crashing, an inability to handle your typical volume of customers, a security breach, a reputational breach because your API is down for several days. Which means lost revenue, lost customers. That’s the risk you take when you accumulate tech debt.

When you run your business saying, “Let’s not do that, let’s put that off. Let’s not maintain that system, let’s build this new thing instead,” or, “Let’s get this new thing done quick and dirty and we’ll worry about the rest later,” you are putting a charge on that credit card. Some companies can run up an astronomical credit card bill.

Now, it is nearly impossible to run a company against modern standards without accumulating some tech debt. Technology changes on a regular basis, systems are updated, coding languages change, advancements and innovations occur rapidly. Systems and processes also deprecate quickly, security patches are released quickly. It’s really hard to be 100% paid in full all the time.

Most people today don’t use cash for many things. They carry around a debit card where the money comes directly out of their account, or responsible adults who use a credit card will pay it off at the end of every month. It’s controlled. Uncontrolled tech debt will strangle and kill a company, which is why modernization is so vital to the success of every business today.

About the Author

PWV Consultants is a boutique group of industry leaders and influencers from the digital tech, security and design industries that acts as trusted technical partners for many Fortune 500 companies, high-visibility startups, universities, defense agencies, and NGOs. Founded by 20-year software engineering veterans, who have founded or co-founder several companies. PWV experts act as a trusted advisors and mentors to numerous early stage startups, and have held the titles of software and software security executive, consultant and professor. PWV's expert consulting and advisory work spans several high impact industries in finance, media, medical tech, and defense contracting. PWV's founding experts also authored the highly influential precursor HAZL (jADE) programming language.

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