MINIMIZE AND HOW TO IT By Jen A. Miller ommunity banks rely on technology to connect with and work for their customers. But technology ages quickly. If community banks try to make older systems work or rely on core vendors that have been patching their operation systems for decades, they can become mired in what's known as technical debt. Technical debt is " the accumulation of tasks and work that the engineering team or bank needs to do to address ongoing maintenance or leftover work to optimize systems, " says Joe Davey, partner in the Los Angeles C technology practice at West Monroe, a digital services firm. " It's the backlog of work that you have to do in order to keep your systems going or address critical issues. " Think of technical debt like rust on a bike. You can still probably peddle a rusty bike and ride it a short distance, but it's going to require more effort to go as far and as fast as a competitor's newer, pristine model. And if your competitor's newer model is electrified? They'll leave you in the dust. " Community banks typically struggle to address their technical debt because it takes away from the sources that they need to run business operations, " Davey independentbanker.org // 47http://www.independentbanker.org