Know the Tech Debt, BEFORE you invest

When any Investment Fund asks us to audit the Tech used by their potential start-up investee, the first question we seek answer for; is "How much is their Tech Debt?"

Let’s first understand what is Tech Debt or Technical Debt.

Simply put, it is the cost of extra rework or re-engineering caused just because team chose simpler approach to solve a problem instead of better approach that would have taken more time to implement. It is a consequence of taking a short-cut during software development in order to achieve goal faster.

So what essentially causes the Tech Debt?

• Business pressure. Pressure to go-live quickly
• Long series of project enhancements
• Lack of process understanding, poor exposure to industry standards, frameworks
• Sub-optimal architectures and designs
• Poor tech leadership and ownership
• Lack of vision to product roadmap

If the tech debt is not repaid in time, teams have to pay interest in terms of,

• Defects that make the product un-reliable
• Poor code quality
• Negative user experience
• Challenges in scaling
• Extra investment in terms of time and cost
• Reduced agility and confidence of the team involved

Below are some of the ways, CTOs, CIOs can reduce their tech debt,

• Dedicate time and capacity to identify how big is the debt, its impact on your product and then plan incremental sprints
• Identify points that made team take on tech debt
• Review software development strategy, re-adjust the delivery plan and publish tech debt tracker
• Enable knowledge sharing via trainings, exposure to industry best practices, latest tech trends

Virtuoso helps #investmentfunds to identify the Technology Risks and Debts before investing into start-ups, to avoid future risks and ensure that the start-up is built on a future-proof Tech.