8 key indicators to measure technology debt in 2022

Technical debt metrics can help you monitor defects in your current code base . Today we're going to see how they work , And pick the best tracking tool .

Like a bill on a credit card , Technical debt can easily get out of hand . To avoid this happening , You need to track how much debt you have accumulated .

Technical debt indicators are designed to help you understand all the data you collect . There are many different indicators to choose from , And there are a lot of tools for recording data .

In this article , We will learn how they work , And help you choose the right indicators for your business .

Why technical debt is important to your business

Before we get into the details , It is necessary to look at the bigger picture first .

Technical debt or Code debt Is any defect in the code , As the business grows, it must be corrected . The more technical debt you accumulate , The more rework you need to do later .

Of course , Rebuilding critical systems from scratch is inefficient . In addition to any investment you made in the original development phase , It also takes time and money .

Solving the technical debt problem may also demoralize engineers —— This leads to a decrease in employee retention —— Final , Users will start to feel frustrated about your inferior products .

Technical debt is too much ？

All this sounds terrible . However , Technical debt is not necessarily a disaster .

Just like your credit card , A small amount of technical debt is OK . For startups , This is actually essential . Sometimes you need to launch MVP Or basic product as proof of concept . This can help you raise money , Used to repay technical debt .

however , If you let debt pile up , Your business may eventually lead to a huge amount of “ bill ”.

Popular payment processors Stripe Actually start quantifying the cost of technical debt . Their research found that , The average cost of an engineer is 33% Time to deal with technical debt . On a global scale , This is a Global GDP It's caused 3 Trillion dollar impact .

Measuring technology debt 8 Indicators

The main reason why technology debt is so common is that many companies don't even realize how much technology they have . Only when the company wants to add new features , Problems will arise .

To make sure you don't fall into the same trap , It is better to set some technical debt indicators . Please note that , We say in the plural “ indicators ”. There is no single data point that gives you an accurate picture of your technical debt . contrary , You will need to use a set of metrics to build the picture .

that , What should you prioritize ？ Here are our favorites .

1. New error and closed error

This is a simple start .

Every known error is essentially a small technical debt . If you want to know your total debt , So it is very important to count your engineers .

Suppose your engineer records when the error is fixed , You can calculate how efficiently you manage technical debt . If the number of new errors exceeds the number of closed errors , You need to make some changes .

2. Debt index

The debt index is based on the ratio of solved problems to total problems , The higher the priority, the greater the weight .

If your engineering team regularly tracks and prioritizes code base issues , You can easily view How many problems have you solved and unsolved . You can track it in the issue tracker , But the easiest way is to use Stepsize VSCode or JetBrains Editor Extension , They allow you to track and prioritize code base issues directly from the editor . Besides , You will be able to see progress on the dashboard , This will motivate your team to resolve more technical debt .

3. Code quality

Complex code is a clear sign of growing technical debt . At some point , Someone has to solve this mess . Code quality yes Quantify the overall quality and complexity of your code Set of several indicators of ：

• Cyclomatic complexity

• Class coupling

• Lines of code

• Inheritance depth

For each of these individual indicators , Your goal is to score as low as possible . The same is true of the overall metrics for code quality .

4. Cycle time

Another indicator closely related to code quality is Cycle time .

In technical terms , This measures the amount of time elapsed between the first commit and deployment . however , When you measure technical debt , You need to study the time it takes to make changes to existing code and fix problems without using quick fixes .

If your engineers spend hours fixing small bugs , You will know that there is some technical debt lurking in the code .

5. Code loss

Code loss Is a measure of how specific code is deleted 、 Number of times to replace or rewrite .

When you develop new features or work with specific parts of the product , Inevitably there will be some loss . But after you released a new version and fixed the outstanding errors , Code loss should begin to decrease rapidly .

If you see a high churn rate in any area of your code over a long period of time , It may mean that every iteration will result in errors or quick fixes .

6. Code coverage

In a sense , Code coverage Measurement is looking at the same problem in the opposite direction .

under these circumstances , You are measuring how much code is executed when you run the test suite . This gives you an idea of the efficiency of writing code - The more unused lines , The more likely you are to write bad code .

A good target number here is 80%. Above this score is commendable , A lower score indicates work to be done .

7. Code ownership

In the culinary world , People often say that “ Too many cooks will spoil the broth ”.

The same idea can be applied to software engineering . If you put too many people on the same task , You can easily end up with a pile of steaming garbage . in other words , You don't want only one engineer to own the entire project . If they get sick or leave your organization , The game is over .

For this reason , It's a good idea to analyze who is involved in which projects . As part of the process , You should calculate your contribution to each project * How many engineers —— This is yours * Code coverage .

The average figure will reveal whether you have an effective task delegation system , Or a free system . Ideally, there is a complete team responsible for each project .

8. Technical debt ratio (TDR)

seeing the name of a thing one thinks of its function , This indicator is specifically designed to calculate the overall cost of future technical debt . This can be time or some other resource .

The equation is simple ：

（ Repair costs ÷ Development costs ）×100 = TDR

under these circumstances , It can be calculated according to the above code quality indicators Repair costs .

Development costs It is a simple calculation of the number of lines of code required to build a product or function divided by the average resource consumption per line . Put both in your TDR Fang Chengzhong , You end up with a simple ratio , It tells you how much time or resources it takes to solve the problem . In an ideal situation , Your TDR Will be in 5% about . If you reach a multiple of this number , It's time to start settling your technology debt ！

Extra surprise ： Front end response time

front end Responsiveness is not strictly technical debt . however , This indicator can be used as a warning light . If your front-end takes a long time to load , It's usually because your code is too complex or your technology is outdated . Both are important forms of technical debt .

The best tool to measure technology debt

I hope so far , You should start to understand what you need to measure to manage your technical debt . The rest is to decide which tools to use to accomplish the task .

Here are some great options for most projects ：

1.Stepsize

Stepsize Designed for code base problem tracking , Helps you identify and highlight problems in your favorite editors .

Stepsize VSCode or JetBrains Editor extensions are completely free , Will help you track your technical debt and measure your progress . because Stepsize And Jira、Asana、Linear、Azure DevOps Equal integration , You can adopt this application without fundamentally changing your workflow .

• Create and view code problems directly from your editor

• Track code improvements and prioritize , For example, technical debt

• Add key issues to your... Through issue tracker integration sprint

2.SonarQube

SonarQube Not a complete solution for tracking technical debt , It's a tool with a narrow focus .

The main purpose of the platform is to measure and improve code quality .SonarQube Highlight errors and cluttered code through automatic analysis , Provide numbers and levels that you can track over time .

3. Teamscale

The best way to describe team size is as a system analyzer for the product . The tool evaluates the quality of the code and visually communicates information .

Teamscale Can handle multiple indicators , And you can choose to configure a custom dashboard . The platform also provides some quality management functions , Although it lacks Stepsize Provide annotated issue tracking and detailed technical debt analysis .

4. Velocity by Code Climate

Velocity by Code Climate go by the name of “ Engineering intelligence ” platform , Mainly designed to help managers improve workflow and allocate resources . It is not specifically designed to deal with technical debt , But there are some intersections .

Velocity from Jira And others DevOps Extract data from tools to provide insights . You can also run automatic code analysis , And collect information through inline problem reports .

5.Jira

One way to measure technical debt is to create and monitor backlogs in the project management workflow of your choice .

If this is the approach you want to take , that Jira Is an obvious choice . It does not provide any code analysis capabilities for the above applications , But it is a good platform for managing tasks .

Conclusion

As we found out , There are many different ways to measure and manage technical debt . If you are looking for a multi in one solution , Then one of the above options should definitely be on your shortlist .

please remember , All high growth software companies always bear the technical debt . But it's important to measure it and keep cleaning up your code , To keep your company growing .