“Technical debt” refers to any quality issues within the implementation of an IT solution that hampers your ability to work with or evolve that solution. Technical debt is often thought of as a source code problem, but it also occurs in your user interface design, in your data sources, in your network architecture, and in many other places. This presentation explores disciplined agile strategies to avoid technical debt in the first place, to remove existing technical debt, and how to fund the removal of technical debt. Industry data regarding technical debt will be shared.
7. How Aware Are People About Technical Debt?
-1.8
1.3
2.3 2.5
3.9
4.9
6.7
Copyright 2015 Scott Ambler + Associates
Source: SA+A 2015 Q1 Agile State of the Art Survey
Observation: Development teams
are often far more aware of technical
debt than key decision makers are
24. Technical Debt Avoidance Strategies
Detailed up-front architecture modeling
Team members trained in technical
debt
Team works with Enterprise Architects
Team includes Architecture Owner/
Agile Architect
Tech debt considered when designing
Lightweight up-front architecture
12%
16%
19%
39%
49%
53%
Copyright 2015 Scott Ambler + Associates
Source: SA+A 2015 Q1 Agile State of the Art Survey
31. Technical Debt Identification Strategies
Explictly measure tech debt across IT
Continuous integration strategy
includes the database
Measure tech debt within teams
Continous integration includes code
analysis
We know technical debt when we see
it
8%
10%
20%
35%
61%
Copyright 2015 Scott Ambler + Associates
Source: SA+A 2015 Q1 Agile State of the Art Survey
Observation: If you
can’t consistently
identify technical debt
then you can’t fix it
42. Technical Debt Funding Strategies
Cost of addressing tech debt is tracked
Value of addressing tech debt is
tracked
Specific projects to pay down tech
debt
Paying down tech debt automatically
funded
Specific requirements to pay down
tech debt
5%
14%
23%
48%
49%
Copyright 2015 Scott Ambler + Associates
Source: SA+A 2015 Q1 Agile State of the Art Survey
47. Thank you – Questions?
• Scott Ambler + Associates
– ScottAmbler.com
– scott@scottambler.com
@scottwambler
• Disciplined Agile Delivery: A Practitioner’s Guide, by Scott Ambler &
Mark Lines
• Introduction to Disciplined Agile Delivery: A Small Team’s Journey, by
Mark Lines and Scott Ambler
• DisciplinedAgileDelivery.com
• DisciplinedAgileConsortium.org
• DAD LinkedIn Discussion Group:
– linkedin.com/groups/Disciplined-Agile-Delivery-4685263
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