.NET Rocks!

Battling Technical Debt while Keeping the Lights On with Jim Holmes

Episode #1045 Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Carl and Richard talk to Jim Holmes about managing technical debt - while still getting your work done. The conversation starts out talking about what exactly technical debt is... it's not just the code you're afraid of! Jim also digs into the business justification for reducing technical debt, focused on how you can show the cost of your technical debt in the form of tech support or how it slows down the development of new features. Once you've got cycles for mitigating technical debt, how do you go about it? Remember that this was the code you were afraid of in the first place, so tackling it takes time and care to do well. Jim digs into how to split your time between new features (and keep the lights on) as well as retiring the technical debt in your organization. After all, getting too deeply in debt is also a way to turn out the lights on your business - you need a plan to fight back!

Guests:

Jim Holmes

Jim is the VP for ALM and Testing at Falafel Software. He has been in various corners of the IT world since joining the US Air Force in 1982. He’s spent time in LAN/WAN and server management roles in addition to many years helping teams and customers deliver great systems. Jim has worked with organizations ranging from start ups to Fortune 100 companies to improve their delivery processes and ship better value to their customers. Jim’s been in many different environments but greatly prefers those adopting practices from Lean and Agile communities. When not at work you might find Jim in the kitchen with a glass of wine, playing Xbox, hiking with his family, or banished to the garage while trying to practice his guitar.

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