A sleeping giant is hiding within DevOps teams. It’s called technical debt – the price developers pay for prioritizing fast delivery over well-designed code. Mike Saccotelli, director of solution development, SPR Consulting, discusses how to address the challenges of technical debt more efficiently.
Technical debt inevitably starts at the beginning of any new software project. The developers may have a single end goal in mind, like rolling out a new cutting-edge feature for an application or deploying an update that improves the user experience. But once they accomplish that goal, the developers turn their attention elsewhere. That’s when the giant starts to grow.Â
Like debt in any other area of life, technical debt becomes harder to control as it increases, and ignoring it makes the resulting security and financial risks more severe than they have to be. By adopting a mindset of continuous improvement, you can mitigate these risks while keeping both the software you develop and business-critical software sustainable.Â
The Cost of Not Monitoring Your Software
Too often, developers are pressured into prioritizing short-term gains at the cost of long-term stability. They feel pressure from users and internal stakeholders to meet deadlines. The message they receive is that timeliness is more important than quality. Consequently, this short-term outlook makes it difficult to maintain long-term software maintenance and monitoring.
This dynamic breeds technical debt. It occurs when you view your software as a to-do item rather than an organic resource. Like other organic things, your software requires consistent attention to stay healthy. Withholding this attention can be costly, especially given how interconnected applications are with each other – if an app is unhealthy, it has ripple effects across your IT environment.
Take Log4J, for example. Log4J is open-source software that records errors and system operations and communicates messages about them to users. It’s used in many software development and security tools and cloud services like Apple’s iCloud. But a vulnerability in the software has been exploited by a wave of cyberattacks that have affected millions of computersOpens a new window since December of last year. This is how many successful cyberattacks operate, taking advantage of one application’s vulnerability to affect every piece of software in the same network. Â
Beyond security concerns, neglecting older software guarantees your team will have to scramble for solutions when that software is due for an upgrade or replacement — especially for a business-critical application. HR software, scheduling software, communication software — your internal policies are built around these applications functioning and being available. You can’t just haphazardly swap one out for another. A transition between applications takes careful planning and execution, something you won’t have time for if you neglect to keep tabs on your software’s usability.
See More: Why Building a DevOps Culture Is Critical to Digital TransformationOpens a new window
Key Elements of an Effective, Long-term Software Monitoring Strategy
Your software management method will differ based on your organizational needs and the application itself. But there are two primary considerations that your DevOps teams should incorporate into their monitoring process planning: how often you’ll evaluate your software and how you’ll go about assessing it. Here are some tips for both:
- Cadence
The cadence of software monitoring checkpoints will vary depending on the application’s purpose. For example, a customer-facing product needs more consistent attention than a back-office application. The reason is that external products are more likely than an HR application to be affected by market demands and usability expectations.
As external and internal software grow older, the return on investment for frequent check-ins diminishes. Feel free to space out the cadence of your check-ins, but never abandon them. While the benefits of consistent check-ins may fade over time, the risk of technical debt grows yearly.
- Methodology
So how do you execute these check-ins?Â
First, evaluate whether your application still fulfills its original purpose. Have customers reported usability issues? Have your organizational goals changed? Does your product no longer align with these goals? If so, it might be time to go in a new direction.
What does this new direction look like? You could decide to build a new application that better fits your organizational needs, or you could adjust the scope of your current application. The latter may look like adding new features, improving the user experience or adapting the application to a new platform — for example, retrofitting a web application for mobile. Regardless of your route, audit the application for its issues first to identify and address any hidden red flags.Â
Software Development Is a Habit, Not an End Goal
It’s tempting to relax when you feel your application is feature-complete. However, software capabilities and functionality change fast, as do user expectations. If you don’t consider software development a continuous process, you’re setting yourself up for harmful privacy and logistical concerns. Regularly monitoring your software can make you more adaptable to changing industry standards and stay technical debt-free.
How are you tackling technical debt? Share your learnings with us on LinkedInOpens a new window , TwitterOpens a new window , or FacebookOpens a new window . We’d love to know!