Is Technical Debt Regularly Identified, Tracked, and Managed as Part of the Development Process?

At the heart of every scaling startup or SME lies a subtle yet significant challenge: technical debt. It may not sound as glamorous as the next innovative product feature or the latest AI implementation, but it’s an issue that, if left unchecked, can quietly erode the foundation of your technology infrastructure, slow down your team’s productivity, and limit your growth. If you’re not actively identifying, tracking, and managing technical debt, then you're allowing it to accumulate, potentially creating problems that can become significantly more costly to resolve in the future.

But what exactly is technical debt, and why is it such a critical issue for growing companies?

The Nature of Technical Debt

Technical debt is a term often used to describe the shortcuts or compromises made in the codebase during software development to meet tight deadlines or resource constraints. It's akin to financial debt: you borrow time now to meet pressing demands, but you’ll have to "repay" it later, often with interest in the form of reduced system performance, bugs, and slowed development velocity.

For example, let’s say you launch a product quickly to capitalise on a market opportunity, but in doing so, you build some of the features with less-than-ideal code. Initially, it works – you’ve hit the market, acquired customers, and made some revenue. However, over time, those early compromises begin to rear their head. You might find that simple updates take longer than expected because the code is more difficult to work with, or worse, customer experience deteriorates due to the inefficiencies in the system. Now, your development team is spending more time maintaining legacy code instead of working on new features that will push your business forward. This is the 'interest' on your technical debt.

In the fast-paced environment of startups and scaleups, it's almost impossible to avoid technical debt altogether. However, how you manage it can be the difference between scaling successfully or facing bottlenecks that impede growth.

Why Technical Debt is Often Neglected

One of the reasons technical debt often remains under-addressed is the tension between business and technical goals. Business leaders are often focused on driving revenue, acquiring customers, and staying ahead of the competition. These pressures can push development teams to prioritise speed over quality. Additionally, many startups lack senior technical leadership, meaning there's no one to champion the long-term health of the codebase while aligning it with business objectives​. Without this oversight, technical debt can pile up unnoticed.

Furthermore, technical debt tends to be invisible to non-technical stakeholders. Unlike a delayed product release or a high burn rate, the impact of technical debt isn’t immediately evident on a balance sheet or in customer feedback. Instead, its effects manifest gradually – slower release cycles, higher defect rates, and growing frustration within the development team.

The Consequences of Ignoring Technical Debt

Neglecting technical debt can have far-reaching consequences. In the early stages, the effects may seem minor. For instance, you may notice a slight decrease in developer productivity or occasional issues with system performance. However, as the debt accumulates, these small issues compound, and you may start seeing more severe outcomes such as:

Increased Development Costs: As technical debt grows, development becomes more time-consuming and costly. Teams spend more time troubleshooting and less time innovating, driving up the cost of development.

Lower Quality and Reliability: Technical debt often results in bugs, system crashes, or security vulnerabilities. This can impact your product’s reliability and damage your reputation in the market.

Slower Time-to-Market: Innovation is critical for staying competitive. However, with a tangled codebase, simple updates or new feature developments take longer, causing you to lose agility and delay new releases.

Developer Burnout and Attrition: No developer enjoys working in a codebase that feels like a house of cards. If technical debt isn’t managed, you risk burning out your team, leading to higher turnover and the loss of key technical talent.

As such, technical debt is not just a technical issue – it's a strategic business issue that can limit your ability to scale, innovate, and maintain a competitive edge.

Identifying and Tracking Technical Debt

Given the seriousness of technical debt, it’s essential to put in place processes to identify and track it regularly. Unfortunately, many startups lack a structured approach to doing so. It’s easy to get caught up in the cycle of developing new features and forget about the code you’ve left behind. This is why the process needs to be deliberate.

Embed Technical Debt Reviews into Sprints: One of the most effective ways to regularly identify technical debt is to make it a part of your development process. During sprint retrospectives, the team should be encouraged to raise concerns about areas of the codebase that have become difficult to work with or have started causing bugs. This can help surface issues early before they become more deeply entrenched in the system.

Leverage Automated Tools: There are a variety of automated tools available that can help you track technical debt. These tools analyse your codebase and flag areas with high complexity, duplication, or other indicators of poor code quality. While these tools won’t catch everything, they can provide valuable insights and help your team focus their attention on the areas most in need of refactoring.

Involve the Whole Team: Technical debt shouldn’t just be the concern of the developers. It's important to involve product managers and even business stakeholders in the conversation. By explaining the trade-offs and potential risks associated with technical debt, you can build a shared understanding and make more informed decisions about when to prioritise debt repayment versus new features.

Managing Technical Debt Proactively

Once you’ve identified technical debt, the key is to manage it proactively. This doesn’t mean you need to eliminate all debt immediately – in fact, trying to do so could slow your team down unnecessarily. Instead, think of managing technical debt as an ongoing process of making thoughtful trade-offs.

Prioritise Debt by Business Impact: Not all technical debt is created equal. Some debt might have a minimal impact on your business, while other issues could be critical to resolve. It’s important to prioritise your debt based on its impact on the business. For example, if a piece of debt is slowing down development on a key product feature or is resulting in frequent customer-facing bugs, it should be addressed sooner rather than later.

Set Aside Time for Refactoring: One common strategy is to dedicate a portion of each sprint (e.g., 10-20%) to refactoring and paying down technical debt. This ensures that debt is regularly addressed without derailing new feature development. It also helps create a culture where code quality is valued and maintained over time.

Track Debt Over Time: Just like financial debt, technical debt needs to be tracked over time. This could be as simple as maintaining a technical debt log that is regularly reviewed and updated. Having visibility into how much debt exists, and where it resides in the system, can help guide decision-making and ensure that you’re not blindsided by unexpected issues.

Balance Innovation with Stability: Finally, it’s important to strike a balance between innovation and stability. As a startup, there will always be pressure to move quickly and innovate, but this shouldn’t come at the expense of long-term stability. By taking a more measured approach and managing technical debt as part of your overall technology strategy, you can ensure that your codebase remains healthy and capable of supporting future growth.

Conclusion: Make Technical Debt Management a Strategic Priority

In scaling startups and SMEs, the pressure to move quickly and innovate is constant. However, without a strategic approach to managing technical debt, you risk creating a fragile technology foundation that could hinder your growth in the long run. Regularly identifying, tracking, and managing technical debt is not just a matter of good software hygiene – it’s a business imperative that directly impacts your ability to scale, innovate, and maintain a competitive edge.

By embedding technical debt management into your development process, leveraging automated tools, and involving the whole team in the conversation, you can take a proactive approach to this often-neglected issue. Ultimately, by treating technical debt as a strategic priority, you’ll be better positioned to build a robust technology infrastructure that supports your long-term goals.