Technical Debt in Scrum – Best Practices for Scrum Teams

Technical debt in Scrum is an often underestimated problem that can lead to significant challenges in the long run. While agile methods aim to respond quickly and flexibly to changes, compromises often arise in the development process that later result in high costs.

Companies that work intensively with Scrum face the challenge of combining technological excellence with business requirements. But how can technical debt be identified and minimized early on without jeopardizing the team’s agility? This article explores practical strategies to sustainably relieve Scrum teams.

Technical Debt: An Underestimated Challenge

The term “technical debt” was originally coined by Ward Cunningham and describes the long-term disadvantages that arise from short-term technical decisions. In the Scrum environment, this phenomenon is particularly critical, as the focus on rapid iterations and working increments often leads to postponing sound architectural decisions in favor of short-term goals.

Although Scrum, as an agile method, is designed to develop high-quality software, technical debt is often considered an unavoidable side effect. However, this is precisely where the danger lies: it often remains invisible until it manifests in the form of declining development productivity, unexpected errors, or rising maintenance costs.

Why is technical debt underestimated in Scrum?

• Short-term focus: The iterative approach of Scrum favors quick results, causing long-term architectural decisions to take a back seat.
• Lack of measurability: Technical debt is not directly visible and is difficult to quantify, making it barely considered in sprint planning.
• Business pressure: Stakeholders demand fast deliveries, often forcing developers to choose pragmatic (and not always sustainable) solutions.

Technical debt in Scrum is not just a code quality issue but affects the entire organization. It influences long-term innovation capabilities and can determine the success or failure of a product.

How Does Technical Debt Arise in an Agile Environment?

Technical debt in Scrum often arises gradually and is only noticed when it significantly slows down product development. It results from conscious or unconscious decisions that offer short-term benefits but lead to high costs in the long run. Especially in agile environments, several factors contribute to the accumulation of technical debt.

Typical causes of technical debt in Scrum:

• High time pressure: Tight sprint cycles and ambitious deadlines often lead to quick but unclean solutions.
• Unclear requirements: When requirements change significantly during development, teams must constantly adjust the existing codebase and architecture, leading to inconsistent structures.
• Lack of code reviews: Many Scrum teams do not prioritize regular code reviews, allowing poorly maintainable code to enter the codebase unnoticed.
• Insufficient refactoring time: Scrum promotes working software at the end of each sprint, but without explicit time for refactoring, technical debt grows uncontrollably.
• Inadequate test coverage: Incomplete or missing automated tests make it difficult to implement changes without risks, allowing existing faulty code to persist.

Many of these causes stem from structural decisions within a company. The close interconnection between business goals and technical implementation often makes it difficult to recognize the long-term impact of technical debt early on.

The Invisible Costs: Impact of Technical Debt on Teams and Projects

Technical debt in Scrum is more than just a code quality issue. It directly affects teams, projects, and business outcomes. While short-term effects are often barely noticeable, long-term consequences can be drastic. A particularly problematic aspect is that technical debt is rarely perceived as an immediate threat but gradually integrates into daily work.

What are the consequences of technical debt?

• Decreasing development speed: As technical debt increases, code complexity grows, making every change more time-consuming.
• Increased error susceptibility: Unclean structures and poor test coverage lead to unexpected bugs that delay the development process.
• Lower team motivation: Developers who regularly work with inefficient code quickly lose motivation, leading to frustration and turnover.
• Scaling difficulties: Projects with high technical debt are difficult to expand or migrate to new technologies.
• Rising maintenance costs: With each sprint, the effort required to maintain the code increases, leading to long-term high costs.

Another issue is that technical debt is not always immediately recognized. Problems often arise later in development when they are already deeply embedded in the codebase, making them even more costly to fix.

Why Scrum Alone Does Not Prevent Technical Debt

Scrum is a proven agile methodology for managing software projects efficiently. However, even though Scrum emphasizes transparency, continuous improvement, and quality assurance, it does not automatically prevent technical debt. Rather, it depends on how the team implements it to ensure long-term code quality.

Why Scrum mechanisms are not sufficient:

• Focus on working software: Scrum prioritizes delivering a functional increment at the end of each sprint. However, this often leads to long-term architectural and code improvements being overlooked in favor of short-term features.
• No explicit technical quality guidelines: Scrum itself does not provide concrete rules for code quality or technical excellence. Only the Definition of Done is an integral part of Scrum. Without specific processes such as code reviews, technical debt often goes unnoticed.
• Product Owner prioritizes business goals: The Product Owner is responsible for backlog prioritization but often lacks a technical background. As a result, technical tasks are frequently deprioritized in favor of new features.
• Lack of long-term architectural focus: Scrum promotes short-term planning through sprint cycles, but often lacks an overarching architectural strategy to systematically prevent technical debt.

Technical debt in Scrum does not arise because the framework itself is flawed, but because it is not automatically prevented without additional technical discipline. Teams need complementary strategies to ensure that code quality and sustainability are integrated into the development process.

Strategies for Reducing Technical Debt Without Jeopardizing the Sprint Cycle

Technical debt in Scrum cannot be completely avoided, but it can be strategically reduced. The key is to balance rapid delivery with sustainable code quality without disrupting the sprint cycle or the team’s ability to deliver. Clear strategies help gradually reduce technical debt without slowing down product development.

Effective approaches to reducing technical debt:

• Prioritize technical tasks in the backlog: Technical debt must be treated as regular work and made visible in the product backlog. This includes refactoring, test automation, and architectural improvements.
• Expand the Definition of Done: Quality criteria such as code reviews, unit tests, and documentation should be an integral part of the Definition of Done to prevent technical debt from accumulating.
• Plan continuous refactoring: Smaller refactoring tasks should be performed continuously in each sprint rather than postponing major overhauls indefinitely.
• Increase test coverage: Automated tests help safely reduce existing technical debt and prevent new debt. Test-driven development (TDD) should be encouraged.

Sustainably reducing technical debt requires a shift in mindset within the team and a conscious integration of quality measures into the Scrum process. Only when technical debt is seen as an integral part of product development can it be effectively managed.

Best Practices from the Field: How Successful Teams Manage Technical Debt

Successful Scrum teams have realized that technical debt does not just disappear—it must be actively managed. By using proven methods and a clear strategy, code quality can be improved without compromising team agility. Many real-world approaches have proven to be particularly effective.

Proven best practices for managing technical debt:

• Make technical debt visible: Successful teams use Technical Debt Logs or dedicated backlog tickets to systematically document and prioritize technical debt.
• Establish pair programming and code reviews: Regular code reviews and pair programming help identify poor-quality code early and ensure quality standards.
• Apply the Boy Scout Rule: The principle “Leave the code cleaner than you found it” ensures that existing technical debt is gradually reduced.
• Measure technical debt: Metrics such as code duplication, cyclomatic complexity, or test coverage help quantify and systematically address technical debt.
• Encourage technical workshops and knowledge sharing: Teams that regularly exchange best practices develop a shared culture of code quality that minimizes technical debt in the long term.

Many of these measures can be integrated into the Scrum process without significant effort. The key is continuous implementation and support from the entire team. Only in this way can the accumulation of new technical debt be effectively prevented.

Long-Term Solutions: A Sustainable Approach to Technical Excellence in Scrum

Technical debt in Scrum cannot be completely avoided, but with a long-term strategy, its accumulation can be minimized, and its reduction can be managed sustainably. A future-proof development process relies on continuous improvement, technical excellence, and a corporate culture that views quality as an integral part of product development.

Sustainable measures for technical excellence:

• Define architectural principles as guidelines: A clear technological framework helps avoid inconsistent decisions and systematically reduce technical debt.
• Introduce regular architecture and code audits: Targeted analyses can identify where technical debt is accumulating and how it can be effectively reduced.
• Leverage DevOps practices: Automated tests, Continuous Integration (CI), and Continuous Deployment (CD) help identify and prevent technical debt early.
• Establish technical excellence as a team goal: Code quality should not be the responsibility of individual developers alone—it must be ingrained in the entire team and corporate culture.
• Make refactoring a permanent part of development: Regular refactoring should not be seen as an exception but as a continuous process to keep technical debt under control.

A sustainable solution for technical debt in Scrum requires a holistic view of development processes. Long-term success is achieved when technical excellence is not seen as an additional burden but as an essential part of product development.

FAQs – Frequently Asked Questions

What is technical debt in Scrum?

Technical debt in Scrum arises when short-term development decisions lead to higher maintenance effort or poor code quality in the long run. It results from compromises between fast delivery and sustainable software development.

How can technical debt be identified early?

Technical debt can be identified early through regular code reviews, metrics such as code duplication and test coverage, and targeted architectural analyses. Automated tests and static code analysis tools also help make issues visible.

Why doesn’t Scrum automatically prevent technical debt?

Scrum focuses on delivering working software at the end of each sprint but does not explicitly define technical quality standards. Without complementary practices such as refactoring, test automation, or architecture governance, technical debt can accumulate despite using the Scrum methodology.

What strategies help reduce technical debt in Scrum?

Effective strategies include prioritizing technical tasks in the backlog, expanding the Definition of Done, and implementing automated tests. Pair programming and code reviews also help keep technical debt under control.

How does technical debt impact product development?

Technical debt can extend development time, increase maintenance costs, and hinder software scalability. It can also affect team motivation, as developers have to work with inefficient and difficult-to-maintain code.

Can technical debt be completely avoided?

It is nearly impossible to avoid technical debt entirely, as every software project involves trade-offs. However, it can be significantly reduced through a deliberate architectural strategy, regular quality controls, and continuous improvement.