In response to the post “Technical debt does not mean doing shoddy work,” Practical Microservices Daily reader James Turner wrote in with another metaphor (shared with permission):
The minute you went down the “thumbtacks on the floor route,” my mind went to an alternate “let the dog poo wherever in the yard, and we’ll clean it in the spring” route that people sometimes take in the cold, Fredericton winters.
Thank you, James! And he also writes a daily publication, One Creative Moment that focuses on helping you fall more in love with your work. I read it and find value in it. I bet you would too. Business is a long road that doesn’t always show immediate results, and learning to love the process helps me keep at it. It’s helped me keep at this list.
Anyway, I love the additional example and not just because I love dogs and hey, James provided me a way to link dog poo and software development.
In all seriousness, the principles that make software development work are the same principles that work in anything humans undertake. Sure, software deals with bits and bytes, but at the end of the day it’s coordinating human effort and dealing with with the hubris of thinking we know everything.
There may be compelling short-term reasons to avoid dealing with the piles day after day, and yes, you’ll get on to the next thing sooner if you do. But the piles don’t go away. And they don’t remain static either. Their presence changes the way you do everything else, getting you the wrong kind of compounding effect.
And if you do find yourself in the position where immediate concerns overwhelm all consideration, and you aren’t able to even consider the long-term, you’re going to have a bad time. Prepare for attrition, low quality, burnout, personnel issues, etc.
It doesn’t have to be that way. There are teams that experience something better. If you’d like help in becoming one, let’s talk.
