What is 'technical debt'?

Technical debt is a term used in software industry to refer to all those shortcuts and compromises which are made in the short term to get a software solution delivered, usually to hit a time or budgetary deadline.

Like monetary debt, a little is no bad thing to help smooth things out to meet your immediate short-term needs. But like monetary debt it needs to be managed and over time repaid.

Failure to repay the debt, like financial debt, is unhealthy and causes problems.

All those shortcuts and compromises will slow down future development and make things messy to work with and cause quality and performance issues which can impact your customers, as well as cause frustration for your development team.

For developers, having too much technical debt can be described as ‘walking through mud’ or ‘swimming in molasses’ as the drag effect significantly impacts their ability to deliver. To follow the financial analogy, it is like having to pay interest on debt, potentially at quite high interest rates. Indeed, there is a real financial cost in the real world as everything ends up taking longer.

As with monetary debt it is best not to have any debt to start with, but if you do to pay it back as quickly as possible. Clients will have better quality solutions. Developers will be far happier and will be far more likely to stick around for the long term.

If you need a payment plan to reduce your technical debt, get it touch and we can help you through the challenges to get your development team performing again.

Why are consultants so expensive?

“If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur” – Red Adair

Red was an expert in fighting oil well fires. The job had to be done, and it had to be done right. Failure would be disastrous and potentially deadly.

In your own business the cost of failure can be also be high. It is natural to seek to save costs, but a wrong decision can be a false economy.

Project failure could mean that you have to start all over again, wiping out any possible savings you might have hoped for; and the delays, additional costs compensating for an inadequate solution, and potential loss of reputation, could haunt your company for years to come.

There are usually many ways to approach a problem. There are online resources which can help. Some material is excellent, but a lot is biased, ill-informed or just confused.

In whatever field, professionals have years of experience, handling many different situations; and in doing so learn many lessons and insights which you just don’t find in books (or online.)

I guess in recent times people have had to cut their own hair or even pull their own teeth. But given the choice, would you?

How do you ensure a project provides a return on investment?

When developing business software, the trick is to ensure you are gaining value from it at the earliest opportunity. This helps to de-risk the endeavour and maximise the return on investment.

If you are part of an organisation that develops software, or you have an in-house system created specifically to support your business process, then you know that creating new features and capabilities requires patience and dedication.

There will always be something more that you want. But that doesn't mean you can't make the most of what you already have. You need to make sure that the system is sufficiently capable to add value from the outset.

"Better is the enemy of done". You can always make something better. But to get value from something it must be in use. Users of the system become a vital part of the process as they provide feedback and requests for new features.

To make more rapid progress consider leveraging existing solutions or components. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel. But in modern technology there are lots of wheels to choose from, and not all wheels were created equal. Don’t over commit to a particular wheel, as you might need to change it.

How do you make sure your systems have the flexibility you need?

What are good software development strategies?

Investing in business software can be fraught with risk and difficulty, but not if you adopt the right strategy.

There are two phrases we use a lot when discussing options with clients and prospects.

The first is: “Evolution, not revolution”

Old systems which work may not tick all the boxes, but they do tick the “working” box. Such systems can often be augmented or supplemented by newer technology which can provide additional capabilities and fill in some of the gaps.

Progressive improvement, without a massive change programme and associated budget, enables you to enhance your business’s processes and productivity over time.

Newer more adaptable systems or components can progressively take on the tasks previously only handled by your legacy systems, eventually replacing them altogether.

Our second phrase is: “Easy in, easy out”

If you are investing in a new technology it should be easy to adopt, but also easy to ditch!

While the latest shiny solution may do all you want now, technology changes extremely fast. It can be all to easy to over invest to one solution making it difficult to change later. You need to be ready and able to swap it, or bits of it, out without significant cost or disruption.

How do I turn my vision into reality?

From vision to reality…

Do you have a vision for a new business? Could you be the creator of the next Twitter or Uber?

A good idea is no good if it just stays in your head.

The problem with global unicorn businesses is they are usually created by someone else, because not only did someone else think of it first they actually did it first.

Some businesses are decades in the making requiring massive investment, expensive research, and development along with unique market insights.

Most however are simply born of a great idea put into action.

The backbone of many high value businesses today is purely digital. Information is the oil which enables real world services, global communication and coordinated action.

At Brandon Cross we specialise in digital innovation; putting existing technologies together in new ways to fulfil a vision; turning vision into reality.

If you’ve got a new great idea for your business, but don’t know how to put it into practice, talk to Brandon Cross.