From Technical Debt to Technical Health with HealthCheck

Why software fails and how you can practically address it with a six-step plan

Photo by nikko macaspac on Unsplash

It is common for software-producing teams to struggle with their business counterparts when it comes to technical debt. If you’ve ever built a software system or product, have been hampered by how hard it is to evolve it at the expected rate, and subsequently tried to argue for allocating time for accrued technical debt, then you might have heard one or more of these at some point:

• “Why didn’t you build it right the first time?”
• “I don’t think you need that.”
• “I don’t have those issues!”
• “You’re just taking the piss, aren’t you?”
• “We don’t have time nor money for nice-to-haves right now…”
• “Is this actually a problem or are you just gold-plating the damn thing?”
• “So now you want more money to do what you failed to do the first time around!?”
• “Christ almighty, don’t go telling management about this!”

Let’s be clear: Unless you own the budget, you’ll never have absolute leverage in this (or any) situation. And, unfortunately, there will not come an opportunity in which there is suddenly time and…