Technical Debt: A Hidden Blocker to Business Transformation

[Fred Champlain]

In the last few years, a lot of organizations have exposed themselves to an increased amount of technical debt.  And many don’t even realize it.  Yet.

Technical debt is the inherent future cost that occurs when software is designed and developed with too much focus on speed and ease, rather than on long-term value.  Put simply, when the overall quality of the solution is sacrificed for speed to market and ease of development, technical debt occurs.  And sooner or later, that debt gets called.  Developers have to fix the problems.  Solutions have to be redesigned and rearchitected.  Sometimes, applications have to be completely replaced.

Why has this become a bigger problem recently?  Because of the increased focus on speed of delivery, and to some extent, on the illusion of business agility.  Organizations have been pushing to deliver more value, more quickly to remain competitive.  That has led to software that has taken the path of least resistance, prioritizing getting working applications in the hands of users, without worrying too much about what problems may occur down the road.

In terms of business agility, organizations have prioritized the need to be able to adapt and adjust to changing priorities, shifting operating environments, and the like.  That has resulted in pressure to pivot quickly – delivering changes and adjustments as quickly as possible.  Again, this has resulted in future problems being built in.

What’s the answer?  Well, for those organizations that are facing the reality of this technical debt, there is going to be a significant amount of rework and effort taken away from future strategic priorities.  The key is to avoid incurring technical debt in the first place.  And that’s something that ServiceNow can help with.

ServiceNow SPM (Strategic Portfolio Management) is designed to help organizations manage all of their strategies, and the investments and work associated with those strategies, in one place.  This encourages the enterprise-wide collaboration that eliminates problems like technical debt.

• Enterprise architects can identify the capabilities, value streams, process areas, etc. that require investment and help to establish appropriate solutions.
• Product architects can define the solution criteria that will be required to deliver improved value delivery, without exposing the organization to unnecessary costs and risks – like technical debt.
• Business leaders can review and prioritize work alongside all other proposed initiatives to ensure that resources are directed to where value is optimized across the enterprise.
• Work teams are able to operate with a complete understanding of how their efforts contribute to the strategic initiatives.  This helps them make the best decisions for the business, avoiding the creation of future technical debt.
• All stakeholders can collaborate and share based on the same understanding of what is happening, what is important, and so on.  This helps to create real business agility, allowing organizations to pivot quickly when needed without making costly short cuts.

Particularly key here are the roles of enterprise and product architects.  This is a discipline that many organizations are still in the process of understanding and driving optimal value from.  But they represent the foundation for everything that happens.  They define the principles and approaches that are applied to how work is done.  They help organizations understand how value is created and flowed through the enterprise.  And they help set appropriate standards that can avoid significant future problems like technical debt.  Combine them with ServiceNow SPM and APM and technical debt becomes something that you never need to be surprised by.