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How to avoid technical debt in Jira?

How to avoid technical debt in Jira?

Technical debt is a rare term referring to the implied cost of necessary extra work in your Jira environment. This problem is caused by poorly transferring your business requirements instead of using a better approach that would take longer, with the purpose to deliver fast results (regardless of quality, scalability, performance, etc.)

Technical Debt in Jira - When "Just right" can damage perfectly

Naturally, the team that sets up the environment has to keep this in mind when creating a well-designed instance. A neat implementation permits future iterations to be achieved easier; nevertheless, hitting strict deadlines and work overload usually block teams from perfecting their environment before delivering the final result.

Technical debt is not a visible defect, so it's hard to detect. But, like debt in the bank, it will generate interest in the future. Technical debt will affect your product, impacting different aspects of your company, affecting productivity, costs, and resources, among other factors.

Many people assume that technical debt is the same as bugs. Part of this statement is true since bugs are a certain kind of technical debt, but it goes beyond that. Technical debt is exceptional work conceptualized but not delivered at the deadline. These defects in the instance can damage agility.

What are some examples of technical debt in Jira?
  • Complex and poorly optimized or over-engineered processes
  • Lack of integration with other tools
  • Loss of directional traceability
  • Absence of process automation
  • Duplicated objects
  • Faulty architectures, projects without a clear structure
What causes technical debt?
  • Lack of quality management
  • No testing or traceability
  • Lack of a quality management process
  • Strict deadlines
  • Poor documentation or uneffective cross teams communication
  • Not having automated standards for working with external staff

How to avoid technical debt in Jira?

1. Detect and automate repetitive processes

Each time someone on the team or a user notices unfinished work and possible debt, the best practice would be to create an issue and prioritize it on the backlog. Users are the best source of ideas since they know which are the most repetitive and recurrent processes. The longer the debt is left without fixing, the higher the cost of repairing the problem.

2. Migrate to the Atlassian Cloud

Using the Atlassian cloud eliminates a large part of the possible technical debt in terms of infrastructure or security (or at least a part of it). But you do not eliminate the debt generated from the internal architecture, system configuration, and business processes themselves. In short, you can buy an F1 car, but you will never win the race if you don't know how to drive it.

3. Control the bugs in your system

Identify the number of bugs in your system and the time it takes to solve them. If you see a rise in any of these, it might show the existence of a technical debt. Keep in mind you should recognize this issue from an early stage before it escalates.

4. Weak processes

Company A solves 100 tickets in 20 hours, and company B solves 100 tickets in 35 hours. The tasks are the same. They use the same tools, but one is configured correctly, and the other is not. No automated data processing, outdated business operations, complex workflows, and architectures that do not scale can accumulate technical debt, affecting the environment's quality.

At DEMICON, we can assist you in identifying and solving your technical debt. We analyze the requirements of your system and use process repositories and rules to keep them updated, effectuating constant performance tests and optimizing your JQL’S. Additionally, we consult you on your goals and challenges, analyzing the points that will significantly impact your needs.

Contact us to take your system to the next level.

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