Managing Technical Debt in Rapidly Growing Digital Products

In software development, speed-to-market is vital. Launching a feature early to capture market feedback often requires taking shortcuts: writing quick code, skipping test suites, or implementing quick database fixes.

Paying the Technical Debt Interest

These shortcuts are 'technical debt.' Just like financial debt, taking on technical debt is a valid business choice to accelerate milestones. But also like financial debt, if you do not pay down the interest, the debt will eventually bankrupt your engineering speed.

“If a team ignores refactoring, the cost of adding simple updates scales exponentially. Sprints slow to a crawl, and bugs proliferate.”

— Sanjay Nair