How to Boost Productivity While Managing Technical Debt

Uncover practical strategies to enhance productivity in software development by managing technical debt, meet evolving user expectations, and industry compliance. Learn how to sustain the software lifespan in this article.

No software survives forever—it will eventually succumb to technical debt. It manifests in various forms: unresolved bugs swept under the rug, deferred implementation of agreed-upon architectural changes, and neglecting updates to open-source libraries. Each contributes to the overall burden, and, at some point, the interest becomes so high that you must pay. In an ideal world, addressing this debt would be prioritized, but often the focus shifts towards fulfilling customer demands for new features or pursuing strategic enhancements. Consequently, bug fixes, architectural improvements, and code compliance enhancements—critical for maintaining industry compliance—are deprioritized or buried in the graveyard.

Ensuring the long-term health of software is challenging, but it is possible to adopt strategies that maintain freshness, incorporate enhancements, and manage technical debt effectively. With customers now proactively seeking to combat obsolescence, no longer content with their product becoming outdated within a decade, we explore practical approaches to ensure a longer lifespan.