Tech debt hinders innovation in organizations. As a tech executive, eliminating debt while transitioning to new technology is crucial.
Here some examples of areas to focus on for an immediate impact:
- Fix simple bugs like error messages displayed when a user submits a form, broken page layouts in browsers, or invalid data being displayed.
- Eliminate hard coded references, like IP addresses, as the limit the flexibility of the application.
- Address UX issues such as issues like inconsistent navigation, unreadable small font, and inconsistent use of UI elements across pages may confuse users.
- Migrate to the latest supported release of vendor solutions. Backdated software can introduce bugs or add cost due to vendor maintenance fees.
- Fix inconsistent naming/ code structure which can cause lengthy troubleshooting time – like searching for a class by name that’s inconsistent in the codebase.
- Improve automated test coverage to increase maintainability, which ensures that logic covered by tests can be modified without resulting in bugs.
- Change the structure of the code to make it more testable. This can usually be done in small, incremental changes, each of which renders a little bit more code subject to test coverage.
- Minor refactors – For instance, when a well-factored class grows to 800 lines, it can be beneficial to split it into multiple classes. Another example is making minor code changes to leverage a new library release that includes useful bug fixes or features.
- Deprecate obsolete code – Old documentation no longer necessary. New code may differ from the old, potentially causing bugs.
Eliminating tech debt can be one of those “low hanging fruits” that technology executives are looking for to reduce IT costs.