If there’s one topic that technology executives are taking a more proactive posture toward lately, it’s the reduction of technical debt to lower costs and optimize their technology landscape. The reasons driving the urgency behind this topic are clear. In an ever-more complex digital age that brings increased volatility and economic uncertainty, technology leaders are focused on technical debt today because they simply can’t risk their organizations being weighed down by the unexpected bloat and growing costs of technical debt. Reduction of technical debt to free up capital and resources and drive growth is a top priority. This shift in leadership philosophy reflects a recognition that doing nothing, or even just taking a reactive approach, is insufficient and will no longer be tolerated as a business strategy.
Many technology executives are working to get unstuck in these areas and learn the pragmatic steps that they can take to confidently solve their technical debt challenges. As with many challenges, a good first step is asking the right questions. Here are some of the key questions to ask in your journey to managing technical debt.
Understand The Challenge
For many IT organizations historically, technical debt just wasn’t prioritized properly. Business leaders didn’t understand the impact, and technology leaders weren’t effectively conveying the challenge to the business. Successfully managing technical debt requires some cultural transformation, and the first step toward this change is asking two related questions that highlight technical debt’s impact on business objectives:
- How is technical debt (and obsolescence) impacting our overall business growth and revenue?
- How are we addressing and prioritizing this issue in our technology investments going forward?
Once business leaders understand the magnitude and consequences of technical debt across the organization, then you’ll be able to address it more strategically and consistently.
Understand The Risk In The Portfolio
Outdated application development and deployment practices, or antiquated or legacy IT systems, can bring specific risks to certain parts of the business. For executives to understand the risk of technical debt, they must quantify and qualify the potential for technology to severely hinder or overwhelm the business. To understand these risks, you must first ask two key questions:
- What is the financial exposure if a system fails?
- How is technical debt in specific areas (martech, fintech, etc.) impacting the ability to innovate, respond, and compete?
Foster A Culture of Continuous Improvement And Innovation
Addressing technical debt is not a single project. It’s a long-term strategy and requires adopting a culture that supports both technical and operational excellence. It’s a mindset ensuring that technology remains a valued asset and isn’t looked at as a temporary fix (using tech as a short-term fix can quickly add to your technical debt). The key questions to ask to achieve this include:
- How are we aligning the prioritization of empowering our people and technology modernization with our business strategy?
- Is this transparent across operations and fostered within our teams?
Managing technical debt can be a challenging but essential part of your broader technology strategy. Answering these key questions will help in understanding the extent of technical debt in your organization and how to implement strategies to address it.
Learn More
Want to dive deeper into some solutions to managing your technical debt? Our Technology Leader’s Toolkit For Managing Technical Debt provides some very clear priorities and a step-by-step guide to managing technical debt. Also, our Technical Debt Red Flag Checklist will help you identify warning signs before they become major issues. And as always, Forrester clients can check out our client-only reports on technical debt and set up a guidance session to dive deep into the issues.
