One of the most common reasons systems don’t improve is the fear of change.
We see ugly code and think, “I should clean it,” then we stop because we’re afraid we’ll break it — and if we break it, it becomes ours. This fear freezes teams, lets messes grow, and erodes competence.
Customers, users, and managers expect fearless competence: when we see dirt, we clean it.
We can make cleaning a regular routine on-going activity by reducing the risks — fast automated feedback, small safe refactors, pairing, and continuous integration. When we’re able to clean confidently the code will naturally improve.
Discussions for your team
- Which parts of the software are we avoiding to touch?
- Do we have fast test feedback to make our refactorings safe?
- Who in the team is responsible for cleaning messy code?
- What small code cleanup can we do this week?