Re-purposing the Technical Debt Metaphor

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Recently, I had cause to re-visit the ‘Technical Debt’ metaphor coined by Ward  Cunningham when referring to agile software development:
I am finding, however, it applies to a much broader set of circumstances such as: unmanaged introduction of Consumer-grade I.T., Line-of-Business ‘Credit -Card-Cloud’ consumption and ‘technology-solution-without-a-requirement-and/or-architecture’ implementations. So I’ve had a go a rewriting Ward’s original words:-

“Technical debt is a metaphor an incremental, get-something-started approach with the easy acquisition of money through fast loans.



A monetary loan, of course, has to be paid back with interest. In terms of software development & technology selection &  deployment, payback requires the technicians to re-work the solution as they learn more about how it interacts with other technologies and which features are being used, or not, or are now needed. Just as monetary debt can easily spiral out of control if not managed properly, so can technical debt.



In business, the metaphor is often used to illustrate the concept that an organization will end up spending more in the future by not having sufficient understanding the complete requirements before selecting a solution. The assumption is that if an organization chooses to ignore a course of action it knows should be taken, the organization will risk paying for it in terms of time, money or damage to the organization’s reputation in the future. As time goes by, efforts to go back and address the missing requirements may become more complicated and, otherwise, messy. Eventually the problem may reach a tipping point and the organization must then decide whether or not to honour its original debt and continue investing time and effort to fix the problem. This decision can be made more difficult by something called ‘the sunk cost effect’, which is the emotional tendency of humans to want to continue investing in something that clearly isn’t working (e.g. can’t scale or missing features)”.


Anything you’d add/change/delete?

Re-purposing the Technical Debt Metaphor

by

Recently, I had cause to re-visit the ‘Technical Debt’ metaphor coined by Ward  Cunningham when referring to agile software development:
I am finding, however, it applies to a much broader set of circumstances such as: unmanaged introduction of Consumer-grade I.T., Line-of-Business ‘Credit -Card-Cloud’ consumption and ‘technology-solution-without-a-requirement-and/or-architecture’ implementations. So I’ve had a go a rewriting Ward’s original words:-

“Technical debt is a metaphor an incremental, get-something-started approach with the easy acquisition of money through fast loans.

A monetary loan, of course, has to be paid back with interest. In terms of software development & technology selection &  deployment, payback requires the technicians to re-work the solution as they learn more about how it interacts with other technologies and which features are being used, or not, or are now needed. Just as monetary debt can easily spiral out of control if not managed properly, so can technical debt.

In business, the metaphor is often used to illustrate the concept that an organization will end up spending more in the future by not having sufficient understanding the complete requirements before selecting a solution. The assumption is that if an organization chooses to ignore a course of action it knows should be taken, the organization will risk paying for it in terms of time, money or damage to the organization’s reputation in the future. As time goes by, efforts to go back and address the missing requirements may become more complicated and, otherwise, messy. Eventually the problem may reach a tipping point and the organization must then decide whether or not to honour its original debt and continue investing time and effort to fix the problem. This decision can be made more difficult by something called ‘the sunk cost effect’, which is the emotional tendency of humans to want to continue investing in something that clearly isn’t working (e.g. can’t scale or missing features)”.


Anything you’d add/change/delete?

Link: Three Approaches to Managing Total Digitization – Peter Weill and Stephanie Woerner

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“How are enterprises managing the spread and scope of total digitization? We at MIT CISR have found that enterprises are using one or more of three approaches to managing total digitization: convergence, coordination, or a separate digital innovation stacks approach. Each approach has very different objectives and measures of success.”

…

“Convergence is about reducing cost, reducing risk, and achieving synergies. Coordination is the right choice for enterprises that are trying to achieve a few enterprise-wide goals such as improving customer experience or asset utilization. Finally, the separate digital innovation stacks approach is right for enterprises that believe autonomy helps improve innovation and local customer responsiveness.”

“We believe that managing total digitization is one of the biggest opportunities and challenges facing enterprises — and their CIOs — today.”

Source:  HBR Blogs

via my Diigo

Managers, leaders and hierarchies

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Is ‘manager’ the same as ‘leader’? Are leaders always managers? And are hierarchies – and, in particular, classic management-hierarchies – always a natural, necessary and unavoidable fact of (larger) enterprises? These questions came up for me whilst reading three articles…

Link: The Nine Elements of Digital Transformation | MIT Sloan Management Review

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Another perspective, similar findings:

“Companies in all industries and regions are experimenting with — and benefiting from — digital transformation. Whether it is in the way individuals work and collaborate, the way business processes are executed within and across organizational boundaries, or in the way a company understands and serves customers, digital technology provides a wealth of opportunity.”

MIT Center for Digital Business research surfaced 9 elements across three categories:

Transforming Customer Experience

  • Customer Understanding
  • Top-Line Growth
  • Customer Touch Points

Transforming Operational Processes

  • Process Digitization
  • Worker Enablement
  • Performance Management

Transforming Business Models

  • Digitally Modified Businesses
  • New Digital Businesses
  • Digital Globalization

For the details:  The Nine Elements of Digital Transformation | MIT Sloan Management Review.

The Limits of Gamification in the Workplace

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In the Wall Street Journal article, “The ‘Gamification’ of the Office Approaches”, Farhad Manjoo is justifiably concerned about the growing trend for managers to try to turn work into a game by simply adding points, badges and leaderboards. Manjoo observes, “Getting people to do things they don’t really want to do turns out to be […]

The post The Limits of Gamification in the Workplace appeared first on Brian Burke.

The Limits of Gamification in the Workplace

by

In the Wall Street Journal article, “The ‘Gamification’ of the Office Approaches”, Farhad Manjoo is justifiably concerned about the growing trend for managers to try to turn work into a game by simply adding points, badges and leaderboards. Manjoo observes, “Getting people to do things they don’t really want to do turns out to be […]

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