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A lot of people irrespective of their role at work, be it devs, managers, executives or architects often misunderstand what is to be called as tech debt and end up classifying cruft as tech debt. Management loves the concept of debt, often when it is easily available. The debt metaphor means, management can borrow from the future at cheaper interest rates and repay easily when they are able to multiply their capital acquired through debt. Debt is intentional, needs to be repaid, has to help you achieve more than you will repay in interest.

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What people talk about technical debt in the day to day work is not tech debt but cruft. None of that is intentional, it is purely poor practices, bad engineering and accidental. If we want to take an analogy to explain the difference between the two- a family of five people, parents with three kids is having a hatchback.They find it hard to go on their vacation trips and rely on rental vans. Most of the days mixing use of public transport and sharing the car helps them gets through the day. They keep considering about either buying another car or upgrading this one to a larger one but put it aside due to financial constraints. This scenario is what we call as tech debt. What is cruft then? If the same family who has a hatch back, never cleans the car, neither changes oil, does not fix dents and scratches which cause metal rot over time is cruft. Eventually even the small car they have will become unusable.

Tech debt has a benefit, it is always helpful until you hit the next magnitude problem while cruft is always damaging and drain on time and energy. You neither plan nor ask for permission to avoid or clean up cruft. It should be part of your every day job to leave the code in which you live in a clean and well tested state. If you have to keep defending cruft in the name of tech debt, you are in the wrong place.

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In a math class, a professor asked this question – Imagine you in the middle of an ocean and have a boat, you travel 500 km north, turn 90 degrees, go 500 km, then turn 90 degrees, go another 500 km, again turn 90 degrees, go another 500 km, where will you be. Immediately so many hands went up to answer the question that is too easy, but the professor identified a pupil thinking deeply but who did not raise hands. When asked why was the pupil not raising hands, the answer was – “I don’t know how to calculate”. The entire class left out a loud laughter, the professor waited patiently for the laughter to die down and asked the pupil to explain the thoughts on the board. The pupil explained that earth is curved so travelling huge distances and turning 90 degrees four times will not take you back to the same location but some kilometres short, but is not aware of how to calculate the exact distance away from the starting point. The professor explained to the class that the pupil is in right direction, this is non Euclidean geometry, how overconfidence blinds people into stagnating at a level.

A confident person taking a gorilla head on

The workplace is no different, but there are no professors to validate confidence vs competence. I was misled a few times and made mistakes in staffing, until I found a way to interview people and identify the indicators for competence. Dunning-Kruger effect explains that most of us will always pitch on better-than-average rating if we are asked to evaluate ourselves. The false confidence that it imparts to below average people and the hesitation it imparts on above average people will be presented and read as an indicator for competence.

Some indicators that helped identify competence and weed out false confidence

  • Humility – This is one of the biggest indicators for me, people who are humbled by experiences have learnt a lot.
  • Grit, Discipline, System – People who have a systems way of working, hanging out on to habits/practices/processes that are simple, yet effective and have a long term impact.
  • Team player – Very difficult to find out in first meetings, some points include openness to share knowledge, ability to receive feedback, challenge ideas but not the person etc.

Falsely confident people will walk in circles when lost, but will give the illusion of progress and that comfort feel of not stuck in a place. Competent people may need the – observe, orient, decide and act loop to work before they can act but will sure help progress.

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I come across people in the spectrum of extremely laid back to extremely driven. Laid back ones or happy me go lucky ones have a strong belief in destiny and are often victim of systems. The driving factor for them is that there is very little one can influence on what is about to happen to them. On the other hand, people with an extreme drive try to keep altering every aspect of what they do to control their destiny leading to a high anxiety state. You can read more in detail about it here on what is locus of control.

What is the healthy state to be in? It is not the middle path, it is towards the internal sense of control that is desired but not on the extreme end. Kids in the initial days have an external sense of control, the sense of control gets more and more internalised as their learning horizon expands and they begin to understand cause and effect very well. This is not a inborn trait, our environment around us and self reflections will shape our sense of control.

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Environment shapes how an individual’s locus of control is established. A workplace that is toxic, promotes favouritism, has tight command and control will eventually prime the individuals to adopt an external locus of control. They become less engaged, more laid back and often make poor choices which slowly bleeds into their personal life as well.

It is crucial that a workplace promotes psychological safety if they need individuals to develop a healthy locus of control. Individuals should also understand that complete control is impossible and should develop the mindset to accept things that cannot be controlled, which will result is less anxiety and move on to next set of challenges.