Manage Your Technical Debt | Info-Tech Research Group

All organizations, of all sizes, have some amount of technical debt, but very few systematically track, manage, and communicate it.
Deferred project work is pushed over to operations, sometimes with little visibility or hand-off, where it gets deprioritized and lost.
IT doesn’t have the resources or authority to make needed changes to address the impact of tech debt and can’t make the case for improvement without good data on the problem.
Efforts to track technical debt get stuck in the weeds, don’t connect technical issues to business impact, and run out of steam.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

Technical debt is a type of technical risk, which in turn is business risk. The business, not IT, must make the decision to accept or mitigate risk – but IT must help the business make an informed decision.
There are two ways to keep your technical debt at a manageable level – effectively, to mitigate risk: either stop introducing new debt or start paying back what you already have.

Impact and Result

Define and identify your technical debt. Focus on tech debt you think you can actually fix.
Conduct a streamlined and targeted business impact analysis to prioritize tech debt based on its ongoing business impact.
Identify options to better manage technical debt and present your findings to business decision makers.

Manage Your Technical Debt Research & Tools

Start here – read the Executive Brief

Read our concise Executive Brief to understand the business case to manage technical debt, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

Manage Your Technical Debt – Executive Brief

1. Identify your technical debt

Define, identify, and organize your technical debt in preparation for the technical debt impact analysis.

2. Measure your technical debt

Conduct a technical debt business impact analysis.

3. Manage your technical debt

Identify options to resolve technical debt and summarize the challenge and potential solutions for business decision makers.

Member Testimonials

After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real-time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve. See our top member experiences for this blueprint and what our clients have to say.

9.0/10

Overall Impact

$36,416

Average $ Saved

17

Average Days Saved

Client

Experience

Impact

$ Saved

Days Saved

Testimonial

South African Reserve Bank

Guided Implementation

10/10

$34,250

10

Best - SME advisory and context to fasttracked our thnking in developing an approach to manage technical debt.

Agriculture Financial Services Corporation

Workshop

10/10

N/A

N/A

This was an excellent workshop and presentation. The facilitator was engaging and kept the conversation on track. Feedback from others in attenda... Read More

City of Steamboat Springs

Guided Implementation

8/10

N/A

N/A

The conversations with Andrew were great, including those that went slightl off topic to topics adjacent to tech debt. The project was not a formal... Read More

Health Canada

Workshop

9/10

$25,000

20

Positive energy made for an enjoyable time even though topic can otherwise be quite dull. Deliverable is solid and a great starting point for our c... Read More

Administrative Tribunals Support Service of Canada

Workshop

8/10

$50,000

20

The best part of the workshop was the fact that it was very interactive and all members participated actively. There wasn't really a worst part... Read More

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About Info-Tech

Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.

We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.

What Is a Blueprint?

A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your IT problems.

Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.

Table of Contents

Talk to an Analyst

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You can start as early as tomorrow morning. Our analysts will explain the process during your first call.

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Each call will focus on explaining the material and helping you to plan your project, interpret and analyze the results of each project step, and set the direction for your next project step.

Author

Andrew Sharp

Contributors

Craig Mueller, Global Director, IT Infrastructure & Operations, HUSCO International
Four anonymous contributors

Search Code: 95707
Last Revised: February 12, 2021

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