The Hidden Costs of Supporting Multiple Versions in Production

TL;DR; Supporting multiple versions in production drains engineering resources through increased context-switching, merge conflicts, and bug risks. Back-porting fixes and maintaining separate branches for each customer make things worse, leading to instability and technical debt. To avoid these problems, teams should simplify and standardise their branching strategy.

Published on 6 February 2025

Written by Martin Hinshelwood

1 minute read

https://nkdagility.com/resources/un1ZqM8aYng

Supporting multiple versions in production is a hidden tax on engineering teams.

Every version adds:

More context-switching
More merge conflicts
More chances for bugs to slip through

Reverse integration—back-porting fixes to older versions—is even worse. It creates instability, increases the risk of unintended regressions, and wastes engineering time.

And then there’s branch by customer—the absolute worst-case scenario. Maintaining separate branches for each client is a scaling disaster, guaranteeing technical debt and a painful development experience.

If a team is struggling to keep track of where changes are applied, it’s already a sign that the branching strategy is broken. Standardise, simplify, and move forward—not backward.

Also published on: LinkedIn

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