- the one they took? Under what circumstances will this design not work? Are there performance limitations of the design?
If technical debt is a reality for your organization, then learn how to increase your testing sophistication and expertise to help diagnose and decrease the debt.
Technical debt impedes you from making project progress, and in my experience, it appears to dramatically affect how much testing you can do. Remember, technical debt is like credit card debt. The more you accumulate, the more you are impeded.
You might be able to shortchange your product on one or two releases, but at some point if you don't pay it off in a planned way, the debt buries you.
Acknowledgements
I thank Esther Derby, Dale Emery, Dave Smith, and Jerry Weinberg for their review on this column.
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About the author
Johanna Rothman, known as the “Pragmatic Manager,” helps organizational leaders see problems and risks in their product development. She helps them recognize potential “gotchas,” seize opportunities, and remove impediments. Johanna was the Agile 2009 conference chair. She is the technical editor for Agile Connection and the author of these books:
- Manage Your Job Search
- Hiring Geeks That Fit
- Manage Your Project Portfolio: Increase Your Capacity and Finish More Projects
- The 2008 Jolt Productivity award-winning Manage It! Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management
- Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of Great Management
- Hiring the Best Knowledge Workers, Techies & Nerds: The Secrets and Science of Hiring Technical People
Johanna is working on a book about agile program management. She writes columns for Stickyminds.com and projectmanagementcom and blogs on her website, jrothman.com, as well on createadaptablelife.com.
