Avoidance Strategies
Avoidance strategies are behavioral or cognitive approaches used to prevent or delay dealing with problems, conflicts, or stressful situations. In software development, this often refers to techniques for managing technical debt, risk, or complexity by intentionally sidestepping certain issues to focus on higher-priority tasks. It involves making conscious decisions to postpone or avoid addressing specific challenges to optimize resource allocation and project timelines.
Developers should learn avoidance strategies to effectively prioritize work and manage project constraints, such as when dealing with legacy code, tight deadlines, or limited resources. For example, avoiding refactoring non-critical code during a sprint to meet a release deadline, or postponing the adoption of a new technology until the team has capacity. These strategies help balance immediate delivery with long-term maintainability, though they require careful judgment to avoid accumulating excessive technical debt.