娇色导航

, often but erroneously referred to as “technical debt,” is defined (by me) as the accumulated cost of remediating all IT assets that aren’t what engineering standards say they should be. Managingit is essential for keeping IT out of trouble.

Need an object lesson? How about the FAA’s newly publicized integration architecture, which has a transport layer that relies on 3 ½” so-called “rigid floppy disks” complemented with encoded paper strips. You don’t need a computer science degree to know that relying on courts disaster.

And, as far too many IT leaders must admit, their IT stacks very likely include risks just as onerous.

Chronodebt: A many-layered IT beast

First, to make sure we’re on the same page, IT needs to practice chronodebt management with respect to all architectural layers, namely:

• Business architecture: The processes and practices that describe how the various parts of the business do their work.
• Applications: The programs used by these processes and practices to turn their inputs into outputs.
• Repositories: Collections of data and information, whether structured (databases) or unstructured (documents and content).
• Integrations: Applications that synchronize overlapping repositories.
• Platforms: The information technology applications run on, including operating systems, database management systems, document and content management systems, development environments, and integration technologies.
• Infrastructure: Networks, servers (physical and virtual), and user-facing devices (PCs and laptops, smartphones, and wearable tech).
• Facilities: Data centers, cloud-based hosting environments.
• Documentation: IT has to keep track of all this stuff in case anything breaks and needs fixing, or that needs updating and extending.

The time and expense needed to manage each layer’s chronodebt is rarely limited to a single layer. Even the most cursory glance reveals that the cost of repaying each layer’s chronodebt includes ripple effects that can trap the unwary IT architect in expensive complications.

The case for chronodebt management

Which brings us to the FAA and its diskettes-plus-encoded-paper-strip integration layer. One needn’t be an expert in the field of technical architecture to know that basing a capability as essential as air traffic control on such obviously obsolete technology is a bad idea. Someone should lose their job over this.

And yet, nobody has lost their job over this, nor should they have. That’s because the root cause of the FAA’s woes — poor chronodebt management, in case you haven’t been paying attention — is a discipline that’s rarely tracked by reliable metrics and almost-as-rarely budgeted for.

Metrics first: While the discipline of IT project estimation is far from reliable, it’s good enough to be useful in estimating chronodebt’s remediation costs — in the FAA’s case what it would have to spend to fix or replace its integrations and the integration platforms on which those integrations rely. That’s good enough, with no need for precision.

Those running the FAA for all these years could, that is, estimate the cost of replacing the programs used to export and update its repositories, and replacing the 3 ½” diskettes and paper strips on which they rely.

But, telling you what you already know, good business decisions are based not just on estimated costs, but on benefits netted against those costs. The problem with chronodebt is that there are no clear and obvious ways to quantify the benefits to be had by reducing it.

Chronodebt, that is, is comprised of stuff that’s good enough, right up until it isn’t.

An all too familiar boardroom encounter

Anyone who has had to ask for modernization money can easily imagine the scenes that took place in the FAA’s board meetings way back when, when its CIO, hat in hand, asked for funds to replace the floppies-plus-paper-strips integration. “Here’s what it will cost,” the 娇色导航explains. “What are the benefits?” the board asks.

“There are none that we can quantify and monetize,” the 娇色导航explains.

“You gotta be kiddin’ me!” the head of the finance committee laughs. “Costs with no benefits? I don’t think so!”

“And besides,” another board member pipes up. “Won’t the system overhaul we’re already paying for fix this?”

“Yes,” says the 娇色导航resignedly. “But that’s not scheduled to complete for years, and every day we wait to fix this is another risk we shouldn’t be taking.”

Which brings us to the “four strategic goods” — aka dimensions of business improvement, and the role chronodebt reduction plays in achieving them.

The four dimensions of business improvement

Boiled down to its essence, business strategic goal setting entails four dimensions of business improvement: increased revenue, reduced costs, better-managed risks, and achievement of the organization’s mission.

Chronodebt is, for the most part, a risk. To confront it, risk-focused strategists have four alternatives. They can:

• reduce the likelihood of an incident (prevent or avoid);
• reduce the damage done by the incident (mitigate);
• reduce the financial damage (insure); or
• they can accept the risk (hope) on the grounds that as a practical matter, some risks can’t be prevented, mitigated, or insured.

The big challenge for risk managers is that successful prevention is indistinguishable from absence of risk. It’s lose/lose: If an incident doesn’t happen and the organization has spent good money to prevent, mitigate, or insure against it then the risk manager is a boy who cried wolf. If the same incident does happen and the organization hasn’t spent good money to prevent, mitigate, or insure against it then the risk manager is branded incompetent and left holding the bag for all the damage done.

Chronodebt falls , specifically risk prevention. At the FAA, every year that went by without an incident was another year in which the chronodebt metrics further impaired IT’s ability to make the case for reducing it.

And if this is something you’re facing at your enterprise, don’t blame me. I already told you so.

See also:

• Aware of what tech debt costs them, CIOs still can’t make it an IT priority
• 6 tips for tackling technical debt
• Can AI solve your technical debt problem?
• How to talk to your board about tech debt
• Selling the C-suite on preemptive IT investments