Name
Technical Debt, Bad Investments, and Bounced Checks: Managing Long Term Product Health
Tommy Norman
Description

All technical debt is not created equal and not all technical debt is a bad decision. Trying to lump everything in this one category can cause organizations not to manage it in the most effective way. Sometimes we take on technical debt for a short term gain, other times we make the best decision at the time which eventually becomes less valuable, and sometimes we just write some bad code because we don't have the right motivations and guard rails to prevent it. We'll use a new metaphor (Product Health) to better collaborate between those in engineering and on the business side. That feature design can be like eating a Twinkie, a short term boost but will hurt our overall health in the long run. This new way of looking at things can help us better manage all of these situations where we need to identify and prioritize them, evaluate their impact and risk, determine measures that will warn us when we've taken on too much, and foster collaboration between the business and engineering sides of our organization in a way that promotes the appropriate level of Product Health in the near and long term. You'll participate in groups to identify unhealthy trends in software products, use techniques to quantify risk, how best to document technical debt, and exercises for prioritizing items on your Product Backlog. Take a journey in this workshop to battle the various ailments of our sample project as we fight to keep our product alive and healthy!

This session will NOT be recorded. Attendance is first come, first serve. 

This session will be delivered on Zoom.

Learning Objectives
* Identify and categorize different types and sources of technical debt.
* Analyze and document your debt to maximize value and minimize risk.
* Monitor Product Health to detect early warns signs of a failing system.
* Create the right combination of practices to pay down your technical debt.
* Foster a common language and approach to evaluating debt between engineering and the business.
Track
Technical
Session Type
Workshop
Sponsor
Keywords
Technical, TechnicalDebt, ProductHealth