"Platform health" = the platform's capacity to support features long-term. Performance, security, maintainability, governance.
The tension:
- New features deliver visible value — fast wins for stakeholders.
- Platform health is invisible until it breaks — declining slowly until catastrophe.
Without deliberate balance, new features dominate, platform decays.
Balance mechanisms:
1. Capacity allocation.
Reserve a percentage of team capacity for platform health:
- 70% new features.
- 20% platform health (tech debt, refactoring, modernisation).
- 10% innovation (exploration, learning).
The exact ratio depends on org maturity. New orgs: more new features. Mature orgs with debt: more platform.
2. Define "platform health" metrics.
- Apex test coverage.
- PMD finding count.
- Custom field count per object.
- Active flow / trigger count.
- Sandbox refresh time.
- Production incident rate.
- Time-to-deploy.
- User complaints about performance.
Track over time. Trend up or down indicates health direction.
3. Health targets.
- Apex test coverage >= 85%.
- Production incidents per month <= 2.
- Time-to-deploy <= 2 hours.
- Custom field count per object <= 300.
When metrics drift below target, mandate corrective sprints.
4. ARB enforcement.
- New work must include health considerations.
- "Adding 50 new flows" requires explanation; consider whether existing flows can be extended.
- "Custom code" requires test coverage commitment.
5. Dedicated platform health work.
- Quarterly tech debt sprints.
- Annual modernisation projects.
- Continuous improvement initiatives.
6. Communication.
- Show stakeholders the cost of debt — concrete examples.
- Frame health investment as risk reduction.
- Tell the story when health investment pays off.
Common patterns:
- Crisis-driven — feature development consumes everything until major incident; then mandatory platform sprint.
- Slow decay — feature work continues; platform decays incrementally; eventually unrecoverable.
- Disciplined balance — explicit allocation; metrics tracked; sustainable pace.
The third is rare but valuable.
Senior architect insight: feature work is more visible; health work is more important. Architect's job is making health visible enough that stakeholders prioritise it.
Concrete tactics:
- Health dashboard for leadership.
- Health stories in retrospectives.
- Predict the cost of skipping health work.
- Tell horror stories from past incidents tied to neglected health.
The senior architect protects platform health like a kid's college fund — quietly, consistently, even when it competes with shiny short-term wants.