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How to calculate technical debt before modernizing your application

26 Oct, 2022
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A Primer knowledge insight:

“A thing of beauty is a joy forever”, wrote Keats in one of his poems. I don’t know what he meant by “a thing”, but it is not a software product or applications through which we interact with our computers. He wrote the poem even before the invention of the first mechanical computer.

The joy of using a software product or application is mainly in the processes it simplifies. Of course, a good product saves costs and meets various business needs.

When the product becomes challenging or costly to use, the joy and, with it, its beauty is lost. Moreover, heavy and inefficient products bring other losses, too, though they may work fine now. If we continue using without upgrading them, we may lose our business goals, profits, or in some cases, entire business too.

How to identify legacy applications?

The fast-paced technological advancements have changed the meaning of legacy applications. Legacy needn’t refer to old softwares. Legacy applications can’t be defined by a timeline but rather by the needs they fail to serve.

Estimating Technical Debt?

The first step in deciding whether to replace a legacy app with a brand-new application or upgrade it is evaluating technical debt. Reducing technical debt helps us deliver better products and services faster and at a lower price.

Technical debt is the extra expenditure your business incurs while running old or unsuitable systems when the alternatives are available and used by others.

There are many ways to calculate technical debt. However, they should be customized for your business. However, there’s more to technical debt than helping you sustain. It is somewhat futuristic and is evaluated by carefully assessing business goals.

Questions to answer while calculating technical debt

  • Do your applications help you reach your Business Goals, Mission, and Vision?
  • Can modernization open new revenue sources?
  • Are they slow and rudimentary that they leave your developers feeling wasted and unhappy?
  • Are they planned for sunsetting soon despite working fine now?
  • Do they keep Delivery times low compared with competitors?
  • At what rate do they increase technical debt if left as it is?
  • Do they enable adopting the latest methodologies like DevOps, Agile, etc.?
  • Can you encapsulate your existing application and build a microservices layer around it?
  • Will a collaboration help you reduce technical debt in the least possible time?

Are you looking for a collaboration partner to modernize your software products?

We at coMakeIT have vast experience in strategizing legacy modernization and implementing it accurately. We carefully study the latest software product trends and make your product resilient and future-ready. Get in touch with us – www.comakeit.com/contact-us/

Divya Prathima
The author was a java Developer at coMakeIT before turning into a stay-at-home-mom. She slowed down to make art, tell stories, read books on fiction, philosophy, science, art-history, write about science, parenting, and observe technology trends. She loves to write and aspires to write simple and understandable articles someday like Yuval Noah Harari. We are very happy to have her back at coMakeIT and contribute to our relevant and thought provoking content.
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