Software engineers are continuously pulled in opposing directions at the same time. On one hand, they need to deliver features and functionality. On the other hand, they often need to deliver them at speed. This dynamic results in an ongoing tug-of-war between speed and quality.
When speed is prioritized, it leads to shortcuts and the accumulation of technical debt. This is a given. But if it’s not properly managed, the cost of technical debt can spiral over time. That’s why you need to understand the mindset of your engineers facing commercial pressures while continuously measuring technical debt through software quality monitoring.
Layers of pressure
There are two sources of pressure on software engineers. These pressures are helpful for meeting short-term deadlines, but unhelpful for keeping technical debt in check.
First, there’s the commercial pressure to code features and functionality to a tight deadline. Software engineering is a craft that requires strong attention to detail and complex problem-solving skills. So when a request comes in, engineers will naturally find creative ways to deliver on time. The downside is that any shortcuts taken will add to your technical debt. If this approach is repeated over time, technical debt simply builds and builds.
Second, there’s pressure from the technical team itself. In the interests of hitting short-term targets, a developer might decide to do something their own way that deviates from the software architect’s plan. If software managers don’t have a way of measuring and monitoring the associated technical debt or team members don’t have a way of flagging it – technical debt can soon spiral out of control and present a growing threat to your business.
How to balance commercial and creative mindsets
In our extensive experience of reporting on code quality, when engineers choose to take shortcuts, they usually have good intentions. Broadly, it’s the desire to help businesses hit their commercial targets. For that reason, technical debt is not a technical problem because the solution is obvious: more time is needed to deliver higher-quality code.
Technical debt is actually an organizational issue because it’s a matter of priorities. What we often see is that its software engineers cut corners in order to meet deadlines. Instead, it should be software managers who decide when and where to sacrifice long-term quality – and the impact on the maintainability of software systems – to meet short-term deadlines.
To make the organisational changes needed to reduce technical debt, software managers require a clear snapshot of the current and ongoing state of the codebase. This empowers them to make data-driven decisions that redress the balance between speed and quality.
Doing this requires the right tooling to get under the hood of your codebase and surface independent fact-based insights into its maintainability and the level of technical debt. That’s exactly where BonCode’s consultancy-based platform for assessing and monitoring software quality can help.
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