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The concept of technical debt is an extraordinary metaphor which was developed by Ward Cunningham. He was the one who helped many people to think about the problem and find the solution for it. Technical debt is like the extra pressure or the amount of work which needs to be done in order to complete the technical software development.

Technical debt is very much similar to financial debt. The technical debt incurs interest payments in the same way as financial debts. The interest payments are extra efforts which the software developer and technical team have to make for future development. There are two options which one can go for or take. The first option is to keep paying the interest, and the other way is of paying down the principal by refactoring the dirty and quick design into the more excellent design.

The metaphor also helps in explaining and understanding as to why it is sensible and good to go for the quick and dirty approach. In today’s tough and hectic competitive market situation where many different companies are selling the same kind of products and services it is not that easy to survive. Every business incurs or takes some debt so that they can take the opportunity of the market. In order to meet the deadline developer, incur technical debt. The most complicated thing about the technical debt is that unlike currency or money it is very hard to measure it effectively. The major problem or issue with technical debt is that it slows the ability or power to act to deliver future features. Technical Debt comes from different sources while some can be good the others can also be bad. Debt consolidation reviews will give you a piece of much better knowledge and idea about technical debt. Most organizations are unable to understand what steps they should take and strategies which they should when it comes to dealing with technical debt. While those who are smart and know what they need to do they communicate with the project managers, hire the software developers and bug fixes and make use of the other resources to sort out the problem and fill the existing gaps which are there in the system. Applying such kind of approach is a good strategy as it will work well for resolving any kind of issue but for short-term technical debt only.

On the other hand, for resolving any kind of technical issue for the long term the more dedicated approach, would be to merge the software development skills with a test engineering frame of mind. If you want to reduce the technical debt problems to a theoretical zero, what is crucial for you is to diagnose inefficient processes, inelegant coding, and in-built weaknesses as soon and as early as possible with the different testing automation tools. This is only possible if you try and access 100% testing coverage. If you think that you don’t have the team to handle such kind of issues and solve the problems, then it is better to outsource the work. You can hire a team who are experienced, skilled, mature, knowledgeable and competent in automation. They will do their best and will ensure to provide you with great results. The major benefits of test automation are improved software quality, less time in testing and 100% defect acceptance rate.

There are many different software testing companies, and every software testing company faces some kind of problem or the other at some point in time. When they face any kind of problem, it hampers their work, and the release date of their products get more delay. During such a hectic and tough time when the reputation of the company is at stake, one should take the help and support of the professional team. The professional team has the skills and knowledge to help in such kind of problematic situation and to tie up loose ends.

Types of technical debt

The common type of technical debt is low test coverage, source code formatting, code complexity, lack of modularity and lack of documentation.

Reason for technical debt

Managing the technical debt at the early stage is very much important for the smooth running of the business.  In order to have good knowledge about what really a technical debt is, it is important for you to understand the main cause of technical debt.  There are many different reasons which lead to technical debt, and some of them are as follows:

• Poor team coordination
• Poor conception
• Poor scheduling
• Lack of development practice
• Insufficient specification
• Poor level of communication skills
• No coordination between the testers and the different stakeholders of the project
• Bad selection of test methodology
• Outdated use of technology, tools, equipment, and software.

The Points You Need to Consider for Technical Debt

If you want to know about the points that you need to consider regarding technical debt then you should look at the points which are mentioned below:

• When the problem of technical debt arises, it leads to an increase in the hiring expenditure.
• There will be a wastage of time. More will be needed by release testing.
• The projects will get hampered. When there are many different kinds of technical issue or problems it leads to technical delays and the projects becomes more complex and complicated.
• The tester gives more concentration on manual testing tools. They are so much involved in that they totally forget about automated testing.

These are some of the problems which you may face because of technical debt. A test team may help you to reduce the negative consequences and deal with such kind of problems in a much better way. If you are also facing the problem of technical debt, then you should look for effective ways and strategies to solve the problems and get the right solution for that. If the problem is not solved on time, it may also lead to more debts in the coming days and this, in turn, will result in poor software performance, risk of breaking the software whenever it is updated.