It can’t have escaped your notice that we’re living through financially difficult times. It certainly hasn’t mine! Trying to keep the ship afloat is proving more and more difficult as the gap between income and expenditure widens…and then the washing machine explodes. And the car needs its cam-belt changing. Or the roof blows off the house.
Debt is a fact of life, and therefore managing your debt is both necessary and normal. Sometimes it’s OK to only service the interest for a time, paying back the capital when you can…but to burn the red envelopes and pretend the problem doesn’t exist is what will lead to catastrophe, either when a large unexpected cost appears or your creditors finally lose patience and cut their losses.
A fact of life in I.T.
Debt is also a fact of life in IT. I’ve heard it called both Technical Debt and IT Implementation Debt, but it boils down to the same thing: IT projects that were implemented quickly, cheaply, or not completely, leaving a legacy of unfinished work.
Sometimes there may be a solid business reason why a project has to be implemented quickly (e.g. a regulatory deadline) – but enormous care has to be taken that this culture does not become the norm. If it does, the IT which you need to do business will grind to a halt (or even collapse); crushed under the weight of bodges, hacks and architectural complexity.
Grasp the nettle!
The sooner you deal with it, the lesser the pain will be….a long-term debt management plan, followed through to completion, will ultimately reduce operating costs…as well as giving your business a competitive edge when reacting to change.
My colleague, Justin Carter, has written an excellent in-depth piece on IT Implementation Debt. Have a read and let us know what you think.