EPISODE 036 - Technical: How do I deal with technical debt?

Michael Seidl: Welcome to a new episode of the Get Shit Done in IT podcast. My name is Michael Seidel and our topic of the day is how do I deal with technical debt? So the question is first to define what is a technical debt. So for example, if you still have some servers 2012 or 2012 R2 running, you still have some Windows XP running. you still don't have enabled MFA for all your employees. This is a technical debt. So something what is state of the art in technical perspective, but you haven't implemented. And that's what we call technical debt. first is how does those technical debts occur or exist or created? So one. are made conscious. So you know you have to maybe finish a project and you need to have some implementation after that date. So that's unconscious. And the other ones are by mistake. So you don't have the knowledge or your team don't have the knowledge. you maybe it's a new software, new program, whatever, and you don't have the knowledge and you just implement by how you think would be the best and you miss some technical things. And so that's also a cure to technical depths. So the easy ones are those made conscious because you know what you're missing, you know what you missed, so you can take care of this. The ones you made by mistake might be a little bit different because you don't know that you missed something. So the first thing is to deal with your technical depths is to identify and to document. So for those you made unconscious, you know, you write down, you made a list.

Michael Seidl: And for those you made by mistake, you have several options. You get some external consultants to check your environment and they give you a list of things you should do, you have to do, and maybe also with a priority or impact categorized, or you give your team more information. maybe education in a specific topic so they can identify those technical steps. But at the end, you should have a complete list of everything you missed to state of the art implementation. And then you can go through that list, maybe prioritize, maybe define the impact, and then go to step two and plan your time and resources for that topic. So first is you get all your information, all your to-dos, then you plan your resources, your time, and of course your budget, because it will cost money to get rid of those technical debts. Maybe you have to educate your internal IT team, maybe you have to hire some external consultants. So this will cost time and resources and of course money. So you have to plan and maybe from top to bottom, from the highest priority or the highest impact. So of course, if you decide between upgrading from server 2019 to maybe 2022 or 2025 or compared to enable MFA for all your employees, I'm definitely not a security guy, but for me, the MFA would be the most important. So if you still don't have MFA enabled, do this for your whole company. I think it's a no brainer. You should do it. But you need to define, you need to decide what is most important. And of course you have to run your daily business as well, besides those things to erase all your technical debts. And the third one is, of course, make sure no more technical debts occur. And that can be achieved in different ways. So one is to educate your team.

Michael Seidl: in the software, in the project, in the environment you run in your company or to get some external help. So if you're doing a new project, a new system, ask an external consultant for help, maybe for the beginning. So he will define together how to implement that software, to implement that new system. And on top of that, if you like, he can also help you to implement it. Of course, this will cost money and everything, but it's also a way to teach your internal stuff with an external consultant by implementing, by helping to implement a new software, new project and new system. So you should make sure that you are not doing more. technical depths in the future. So if you're aware of them, write them down so you can plan and fix them afterwards. If you are not aware of technical depth, or maybe it's a system you're not aware of, you're not educated as well, you're not familiar with that, get an external consultant to help you identify those technical depths before, at least to identify before you start implementing and Additionally, also to help you implement those new systems, those new projects and software or whatever we are talking about. So we have three steps. First of all, identify your technical depths. Those you made unconscious are easy. Those made accidentally, you need maybe some help from external. Second one is to plan those, to plan to fix those technical depths. Of course, maybe with external help, maybe with educating your internal teams, whatever. And then make sure no more technical debts are happening. At least not those unconscious are fine because you can write it down. Those accidentally technical debts should not happen. So educate your team or make sure you get some external help by consulting companies or whatever.

Michael Seidl: to sure your list of technical depths stays low, stays on a minimum, and so it's easier to fix those afterwards. That's it for this episode for this week. If you have any questions, let me know. So send me a text message or a voice message best on LinkedIn. And at end, I wish you a nice week. Stay productive, and bye-bye.