technical debt

Articles

Signs Build or Buy? 5 Reasons Why Your Application Needs an Error Monitoring System Versus Building Your Own

The best way to ensure users have a positive customer experience is to use error monitoring to catch errors in real time so you can respond immediately. Error monitoring provides hope for avoiding poor app store ratings and for keeping customers satisfied.

James Smith's picture James Smith
Erasing debt on a page Paying Off the Technical Debt in Your Agile Projects

Just as you should not take out a financial loan without having a plan to pay it back, you should also have a plan when incurring technical debt. The most important thing is to have transparency—adequate tracking and visibility of the debt. Armed with the knowledge of these pending tasks, the team can devise a strategy for when and how to “pay off” technical debt.

Nishi Grover's picture Nishi Grover
Transition to Agile: Large Technical Debt, Small Project

When you transition to agile and you have a reasonably size codebase, chances are quite good that you’ve been working on the product for a while. You certainly have legacy ways of thinking about the code and the tests. Now learn how to work yourself out of the technical debt you have accumulated.

Johanna Rothman's picture Johanna Rothman

Better Software Magazine Articles

How to Avoid Unnecessary Technical Debt in Mobile App Development Projects

When task completion falls behind and more work is lined up for later, you've entered the land of technical debt. This is particularly true in mobile app development. Brian Westendorf presents practical advice to avoid this situation.

Brian Westendorf's picture Brian Westendorf

Interviews

software test consultant Jordan Setters Choosing Quality Debt: An Interview with Jordan Setters

With a better understanding of quality debt, software development companies can avoid bankruptcy that many organizations have faced over the years. In this interview, test consultant Jordan Setters helps teams understand the difference between helpful and harmful debt.

Noel Wurst's picture Noel Wurst

Conference Presentations

STARCANADA Testing Leading, Following, or Managing? You Can Help Your Group Thrive
Slideshow

As testers or test managers, being effective mentors, coaches, and leaders is critical to our team’s success. Quite often we also play important roles in driving change, influencing others, and helping individuals, teams, and the business move from where they are to a higher level of...

Isabel Evans
Agile DevOps Five XP Practices for Agile Development
Slideshow

Five development practices compose the core of Extreme Programming (XP)—automating the build for continuously integrating software as it is written, collaborating with team members through pair programming, practicing agile design skills that enable testability, using test first...

David Bernstein
Quality Debt: Is Your Project Going Bankrupt?
Slideshow

Every decision made during the course of a project can affect the quality of the final product.  Compromises in functionality, design, or implementation invariably come with a cost, which must be paid. Without an adequate measure of the debt a product is carrying, no strategy to repay...

Jordan Setters, Planit Software Testing, Ltd.
Pay Now or Pay More Every Day: Reduce Technical Debt Now!
Slideshow

Is your team missing delivery dates? Is your velocity inconsistent from sprint to sprint? Are customers complaining about defects or the time it takes to add new features? These are signs that you are mired in technical debt-a metaphor that describes the long-term costs of doing something in a quick and dirty way and not going back to clean up the mess. Fadi Stephan shares a technical debt management approach to help you make prudent decisions on how much effort to invest in reducing technical debt. Discover ways to measure the quality of your current code base and determine the cost of eventual rework hanging over your system. Learn how to engage executives and get buy-in on a debt removal plan that will improve system design, increase the quality of your code, and return your team to high productivity. If you are burdened with technical debt, the choice is to pay now or continue paying more every day-forever.

Fadi Stephan, Excella Consulting

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