I ran across an article on the 7 types of tech debt that can cripple your business, which is a great title. It certainly is one that might scare a lot of CTOs/CIOs/tech management. I am sure that much of the IT management gets concerned on a regular basis with how quickly their staff can evolve their software to meet new business needs.
The first two items have to do with data, which is understandable. Data is the core of how many organizations operate and move forward, and if you don’t have the ability to easily work with data in a flexible way, you can struggle. Many of us technical people know this, but I find many non-data-professional staffers don’t get this and are often unwilling to work at improving the situation. They things to just be magically better without changing how they do their jobs.
Many of us data professionals know that data quality is crucial. Many others assume we have quality data. Both of us need to understand that some of our data is suspect, but most of us is pretty good. Don’t get drawn into a black/white argument that our data is amazing or horrible. No matter what we do, there will be errors, so account for that. At the same time, do some testing, some evaluation, and double-check yourself.
We also need to ensure some level of performance from our data stores (databases, data lakes, etc.). Too often we see queries start to slow down and blame the DBAs. We ask them for better performance without being willing to press on developers (or vendors) to improve the performance of their code. Don’t just expect to build bigger machines, make sure you train staff to write better queries and help DBAs learn how to better index systems. We’re a team, so let’s work as a team on our performance issues.
There are a few AI-related items and a couple of DevOps items as well. All tech debt is a problem; it just depends on how much you have as to how big a problem it is for your systems. However, the seventh item is cultural debt. AI is part of this, as staff can have job-threatening views of AI, but that’s really a lack of trust. Management has to build trust with staff and ensure they are cared for if management expects staff to be accountable for code. Workers have to drive themselves forward, as a part of the technology revolution is that change is a given. Don’t expect to do the same job you’ve done for years. Learn to use new tools and learn to use them effectively in your position.
At the same time, management has to value employees and be clear about what’s expected or workers. Be fair with employees and value their efforts. Working together is what will drive your organization forward.
Steve Jones
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