1. Technical Debt –
Understanding its
Sources and Impacts
Through a Game
David Croley - @davidcroley

2. David Croley
Agile Velocity
Principal Consultant
Certified Scrum Manager ( CSM)
@davidcroley
dcroley@agilevelocity.com
Transforming Technology Organizations
2

3. We’d prefer to deliver a fast,
steady stream of new features…

4. But sometimes delivery feels
slow, even stagnant.
CC BY 2.0 http://www.flickr.com/photos/usfwspacific/6121377305/

5. And we hope it doesn’t feel like
this!

6. Technical Debt
A useful metaphor similar to financial debt
“Interest” is incurred in the form of costlier
development effort
Technical Debt can be paid down through
refactoring the implementation
Unlike monetary debt, Technical Debt is difficult to
quantify

7. Development Investment

8. Good and Bad Debt
Martin Fowler’s Technical Debt Quadrants
http://www.martinfowler.com/bliki/TechnicalDebtQuadrant.html

9. Late Deliveries
Mounting
Defects
Rising Development Costs
Poor Customer
Responsiveness
Long Delivery Times
Frustrated and Poor
Performing Teams
Impact of Tech Debt

10. Impact of Technical Debt
“Agile Project Management”, Jim Highsmith, second edition

12. Let’s do an exercise to understand
the concept further.
Form into Teams of at least 4
people.

13. Feature
Cost: 15
Feature
Cost: 10
Feature
Cost: 5
Technical Debt
Cost 15
Impact -10
Technical Debt
Cost 15
Impact -10
Technical Debt
Cost 10
Impact -5
Technical Debt
Cost 5
Impact -5
Technical Debt
Cost 5
Impact -5
Iteration Card
Setup your board as follows

15. Feature
Cost: 15
Feature
Cost: 10
Feature
Cost: 5
Technical Debt
Cost 15
Impact -10
Technical Debt
Cost 15
Impact -10
Technical Debt
Cost 10
Impact -5
Technical Debt
Cost 5
Impact -5
Technical Debt
Cost 5
Impact -5
Iteration Card
Add up the total impact of all
technical debt items
-35

16. 25
-35
X

17. Feature
Cost: 10
Feature
Cost: 15
Feature
Cost: 10
Technical Debt
Cost 15
Impact -10
Technical Debt
Cost 15
Impact -10
Technical Debt
Cost 10
Impact -5
Technical Debt
Cost 5
Impact -5
Technical Debt
Cost 5
Impact -5
Iteration Card
You have 25 Points to Spend
Select the cards you want to spend your points on.
No partially done work.
Feature
Cost: 5
Feature
Cost: 5

18. -35
25
10
15
15
X

19. Feature
Cost: 10
Feature
Cost: 15
Feature
Cost: 10
Technical Debt
Cost 15
Impact -10
Technical Debt
Cost 15
Impact -10
Technical Debt
Cost 10
Impact -5
Technical Debt
Cost 5
Impact -5
Technical Debt
Cost 5
Impact -5
Iteration Card
You have 25 Points to Spend
Select the cards you want to spend your points on.
No partially done work.
Feature
Cost: 5
Feature
Cost: 5
Iteration Card
Cost: 10
Database is getting large and complex. We need to add
automated migrations to reduce manual work and
support refactoring.
Impact: -5

20. The goal is to complete as many
feature points at the end of 5
iterations.
Go!

21. The goal is to complete as many
feature points at the end of 5
iterations.
Stop!

22. Theoretical Capacity
Technical Debt
Productivity
Time

23. Debrief
So how did it go?
What strategy did your team use to
mix features and debt?
Is it realistic?

24. Capture your debt

25. Visualize and Estimate

26. Tools and Techniques
Use tools like SonarQube to help find and measure
tech debt
Ask the team
Track defects by location in the code
Make sure the team feels empowered to fix debt
issues every day

27. Publicize and Communicate

28. Need to invest time, team needs
slack

29. Boy Scout slide
Incrementally make your code
better

30. Key’s to Prioritizing Technical
Debt
Have a Clear Definition of Done - Acceptance Criteria
Articulate Business Value
Work Incrementally - Breakdown Items
Make Visible - Add to the Backlog
Prioritize/ Allocate Time

31. 21
21
1
2
1 2 1 1
One Backlog Prioritized by the Product
Owner
Feature Story
Technical Debt Story

32. 21
21
1
2
1211
21
21
1
2
1211
Feature Story
Technical Debt Story
Two Backlogs Prioritized
Independently
80/20 Allocation
Strategy

33. Discuss how you could apply these
concepts to help your teams.

34. David Croley – dcroley@agilevelocity.com
Website – AgileVelocity.com
Blog – AustinAgile.com
Twitter - @austinagile
Thanks!