According to STS Next’s Global CTO Survey that asked 500 CTOs about their greatest organization challenges, 91% of CTOs label tech debt as their number one issue.
But tech debt doesn’t have to be a lost cause. With the right systems, you can wipe away your debt and help avoid it from piling up again and again.
It’s easier than ever to eliminate tech debt with modern technology and AI solutions. Let’s look at what technical debt means, why removing it is so important, and the AI options available today to tackle it more efficiently.
What is Technical Debt?
There are many definitions of technical debt floating around on the web. People often associate tech debt with code, but it’s much more than that.
According to Matthew Warner, G2O’s VP of Technology, “Technical debt is any technical asset that is currently being supported but not in use, is a net financial debt to budget, or is otherwise providing little to no business value within a company’s corpus. This could include codebases, physical hardware, homegrown applications, or SAAS products.”
Other specific examples of technical debt include:
- Outdated code that you can’t easily maintain or update
- Inconsistent coding standards within the same application
- Legacy systems you still use but that are no longer supported
- “Quick fix” solutions that were implemented quickly but never revisited
- Documentation that lacks completeness or context for new developers
- Lack of automated testing, which makes any code changes risky
Technical debt is painfully easy to accumulate and not addressing it will cause a snowball of issues over time. According to McKinsey, “Technical debt is basically the ‘tax’ a company pays on any development to redress existing technology issues, and it accounts for about 40% of IT balance sheets.”
What Causes Technical Debt?
According to Warner, “Technical debt could be due to, but not limited to, cost to refactor, resource availability and turnover, and over-allocation of resources.”
Inadequate testing, poorly defined requirements, and adding unnecessary features or complexity are other common causes, but there are many. And while speed is sometimes necessary to get to market, there’s no denying that poor planning means mounting tech debt.
Clearing up your debt takes time and effort, and it doesn’t happen overnight, but starting to plan for its elimination, even in small steps, will pay off over time and finally get you to a cleaner slate and more efficient team.
5 Reasons to Eliminate Your Tech Debt
Investing in eliminating technical debt has many far-reaching benefits for your organization. Here are a few substantial benefits of executing a debt reduction plan.
1. Improved Productivity
Old code requires more time for maintenance and fixing issues, which slows down the development process. Eliminating this technical debt removes extra work for developers, which opens more space for productive time creating new features and making improvements.
2. Enhanced Performance
Technical debt is a drain on performance – and the longer you ignore it, the worse it can get. When you have significant tech debt, end users often suffer from overall poor performance due to slower systems or bugs. So, naturally, addressing your debt leads to a better user experience.
3. Greater Adaptability
Technical debt makes it more difficult to implement new technologies or make swift changes in the ever-evolving tech arena. Wiping out that debt improves system agility – the ability to quickly and efficiently adapt to industry requirements or environment–specific changes.
4. Increased Scalability
Tech debt can happen because shortcuts or other substandard solutions were used to achieve short-term goals, which means long-term scalability was not the priority. So, if you don’t address your tech debt when the time comes to scale your systems, whether on premise or cloud, you’ll have a very hard time moving the needle forward.
In a McKinsey survey, CIOs reported spending 10 to 20% of their new project tech budget on fixing problems related to tech debt.
Reducing tech debt will provide a clean slate for your systems to grow with your business.
5. Reduced Costs
It’s easy to put off tech debt as you focus on daily tasks and maintenance. However, over time, managing that debt can become more expensive than actually paying it off. According to a Temple University study, every 10% increase in tech debt results in a 16% reduction in adjusted profit.
The additional maintenance time, poor performance that loses you customers, and last-minute fixes add up quickly. You can avoid this snowball by taking care of your debt now instead.
Now Is the Time to Tackle Your Technical Debt (with Help from AI)
Before we had more efficient options, companies had to expend hours of manpower to not only find tech debt but also construct a plan to clean it up. For many, this had been a roadblock too high to ever fully surmount.
Thankfully, things are different now. There are more AI enabled solutions than ever before to help us eliminate technical debt. Here are a few to consider.
AI Solutions to Getting Rid of Technical Debt
Code Optimization
AI can help optimize your code by analyzing your codebases and identifying redundant, inefficient, or obsolete areas. Cleaning up and optimizing in this way can boost productivity and remove the need for lingering maintenance costs.
Automated Testing
Since AI can check for and identify bugs and other problems in software faster than humans, it can improve your testing efficiency. This means less time and resources spent on testing plus a lower rate of missing crucial issues. Overall, AI processes help you reduce (and avoid future) tech debt.
Predictive Analysis
AI can help you predict future patterns so that you can avoid unnecessary expenses, such as licenses or resources you don’t need.
Smart Resource Management
AI can monitor your hardware and software usage to identify underutilized tech assets and provide targeted recommendations, such as decommissioning or reallocating specific assets. It can also provide a detailed breakdown of how you’re currently using resources and how to allocate them better.
Upgrade Recommendations
In addition to monitoring asset usage, AI can analyze and make recommendations on which assets need to be upgraded, helping you avoid outdated technology and further contributing to tech debt.
Task Automation
Manual tasks can lead to errors that end up contributing to technical debt. AI can help ameliorate this issue by automating routine tasks and reducing the chances of crucial errors.
Data Management
With AI, you can organize and manage far more data than humans alone. Keep a finger on the pulse of your data so that you reduce the chance of data-related technical debt, which can easily and quickly get out of hand.
Risk Assessment
Every decision you make about your assets and processes can potentially lead to tech debt. AI can help reduce the risk of piling it on by performing debt risk assessment in various areas, whether that be current documentation, testing processes, security measures, code quality, or architecture.
Ready to Take on Your Technical Debt?
Eliminating tech debt is crucial for your systems’ long-term health and efficiency. It might feel uncomfortable and daunting to address it head-on, but the benefits are countless: think fewer maintenance costs, enhanced performance, greater scalability potential, and better adaptability and productivity.
Thankfully, modern AI makes it easier than ever to wipe away technical debt and enjoy the drastic improvements that come with a cleaner slate. To find out how we can help you pinpoint and eliminate tech debt today contact G2O, your trusted partner for AI enablement, Data Strategy, CX Transformation and more.