Manage technical debt: measure the impact and prioritize improvements guided by development data

Balancing short- and long-term goals is essential for sustainable software development, as failing to do so can lead to technical debt, which affects the entire organization, including development teams, managers, and product owners. Technical debt is often misunderstood as merely bad code; however, it requires a deeper analysis beyond the source code, taking into account the quality and relevance dimensions of the code. Behavioral code analysis, using tools like CodeScene, helps identify development hotspots by examining how code evolves and its impact on developer productivity, allowing organizations to prioritize improvements where they will have the most significant impact. This approach emphasizes the importance of not just refactoring code with low health indiscriminately but focusing on areas where the return on investment is highest. By integrating hotspot analysis into pull requests, teams can proactively manage technical debt and prevent further accumulation, ensuring that code quality issues are addressed before they impact the main codebase. Understanding and leveraging these techniques enable organizations to make informed decisions on when to enhance existing code or forge ahead with new features, ultimately leading to more efficient and cost-effective software development.