Technical Debt: You Can’t Afford It
Technical debt happens, either via strategic decisions or inadvertantly as a project progresses. Debt can slow down a project and represents a risk that is not always apparent to those outside the project. Teams must find ways to work technical debt resolution activities into sprints and get agreement from external management to reduce it. David Croley explores the sources and types of technical debt and discusses the costs associated with ignoring it. David discusses techniques for making technical debt visible and quantifiable, and shows how to reduce it in an agile fashion. Delegates break into teams and play “Tech Debt,” a game that simulates a few iterations of development. Teams vary the mix of feature stories and technical debt stories attempted in each iteration. The goal is to discover the best strategies for managing debt while delivering maximum features. Addressing technical debt makes for happier developers and happier users.