Understanding and Managing Technical Debt in Salesforce

Vinit Jogani
Jul 30
4 min read

Updated: Aug 7

What is Technical Debt?

According to Wikipedia:

In software development and other information technology fields, technical debt (also known as design debt or code debt) refers to the implied cost of additional work in the future resulting from choosing an expedient solution over a more robust one.

While technical debt can help accelerate development in the short term, it often leads to increased future costs and complexity, if left unaddressed. Over time, it can accumulate quietly, making future changes more difficult, risky, and expensive.

How does it gets introduced in Salesforce Implementation?

The Salesforce platform and its various cloud products offer a vast array of features, enabling the development of complex, enterprise-grade solutions. However, given this breadth and depth, it becomes extremely important to make right choices of platform features during design and development.

As a result, technical debt can be introduced either knowingly or unknowingly during the design and implementation phases due to factors such as:

Conscious shortcuts: Opting for a quicker, simpler solution instead of a more robust but time-consuming one.
Lack of best practices: Improper configurations or customizations that don't align with Salesforce-recommended guidelines.
Incomplete or conflicting requirements: Gaps or ambiguity in initial business or functional inputs.
Change requests under pressure: Last-minute requirement changes that must be accommodated within the same delivery timelines.
Feature retirement: Previously used functionalities becoming unsupported or deprecated.
Platform evolution: New and improved solutions introduced in subsequent Salesforce releases.

And the list doesn't stop there, technical debt can also accumulate due to misalignment between business goals and system design, lack of documentation, or unscalable architectural decisions. Additionally, design choices that were considered ‘best’ at the time may become suboptimal over time as the platform evolves and new features are introduced. Therefore, even if your system was originally implemented with the best possible design or solution, it’s still important to continuously monitor and manage technical debt.

What is the impact?

Technical debt is much like financial debt, if not addressed early, it starts to accumulate "interest" in the form of growing complexity, instability, and cost. The longer it remains unresolved, the more it impacts your application.

The consequences of technical debt can range from minor issues, such as the application not behaving as expected in specific scenarios, to critical failures, where the application may stop working altogether.

Some of the common impacts include:

Security Risks: Sensitive Org data may be exposed to users who shouldn't have access.
Performance Degradation: Inefficient code or processes can cause noticeable slowness.
Scalability Limitations: The application may struggle to grow in line with business expansion.
Increased Maintenance Overhead: Adding new features or enhancing existing ones takes more time and effort.
Overall Decline in Org Health: A poorly maintained Salesforce Org becomes difficult to manage and evolve.

These issues can significantly hinder business agility and slow down growth especially during periods of high demand or transformation.

How to prepare against technical debt?

The accumulation of technical debt is a natural part of application development. However, its impact can be minimized through informed architectural decisions and disciplined development practices.

Here are some effective ways to reduce and manage technical debt:

Follow best practices during design and development to build scalable, maintainable solutions.
Stay up to date with new platform features and deprecations introduced in Salesforce’s triannual releases.
Conduct periodic reviews of your Salesforce Org to identify early signs of technical debt.
Prioritize remediation efforts regularly to avoid compounding complexity over time.
Leverage tools and expert services to detect gaps, inefficiencies, and potential risks in your Org architecture.

Proactive management not only improves the long-term health of your Salesforce Org but also ensures greater agility as your business evolves.

What are the tools available to manage technical debt?

Salesforce provides several powerful tools along with partner-delivered services to help identify and address technical debt effectively. Below are two key out-of-the-box tools available within your Salesforce Org:

1. Salesforce Optimizer

Available directly in your Org’s Setup, Salesforce Optimizer analyzes your implementation and provides personalized recommendations to:

· Improve feature adoption

· Clean up unused or outdated customizations

· Reduce platform complexity

· Enhance overall Org efficiency

You can run the Optimizer in both sandbox and production environments to get actionable insights.

2. Scale Center

Scale Center is a suite of performance analysis tools designed to help uncover application performance hotspots. One of its core components, Apex Guru, analyzes your Apex code to identify anti-patterns and provides recommendations to improve performance and reliability.

These tools, when used regularly, can significantly reduce your technical debt footprint and improve

the long-term health of your Salesforce Org.

(As of the date of this blog, Scale Center is available for free to Unlimited Edition (UE), Signature, and Scale Test customers.)

Why Your Org Still Needs Expert Assessment

While Salesforce offers robust tools like Optimizer and Scale Center, these only scratch the surface. Most tools focus on feature-level insights or system performance—but fall short in giving a holistic, strategic view of your Org’s architecture, technical debt, and long-term scalability. That’s where Ngauge Digital comes in. Our expert-led Salesforce Org Assessment goes beyond checklists and diagnostics—offering contextual recommendations, deep analysis across security, best practices, and performance, and a clear action plan tailored to your business goals.

How can Ngauge Digital help?

Our Salesforce Org Assessment Program (SOAP) provides a comprehensive, in-depth analysis of your Org covering both configuration and customization aspects.

We evaluate your Salesforce implementation across five key pillars:

Org Security
Data & Access Control
Best Practices
Performance
Limits

Our experienced Salesforce Architects perform a neutral and expert-led assessment using a combination of advanced tools and deep Salesforce Platform expertise. You’ll receive a detailed, actionable report outlining:

· What’s working well

· Areas of technical debt

· Recommended actions, prioritized by impact and urgency