Can We Please Stop Talking About Tech Debt?
summary
Argues that the label stop calling it "tech debt" actively harms prioritization and that reframing yields results: integrate fixes into ongoing work, break backlog items into specific, product-aligned changes, and explain the why to engineers and product partners. Applies to modern cloud native, distributed stacks (inventory platform, website, mobile app, vending systems) and product teams rather than project funding. Claims measurable outcome: after adopting this approach across three tech lead roles, none of the proposed items were rejected. Emphasizes work incrementally and tie proposals to the roadmap.
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chapters (9)
- 0:00Intro
- 1:46Tidying up
- 5:04What is tech debt?
- 7:00A lot has changed since the 90s
- 11:41Why "tech debt" is holding us back
- 15:56What to do instead
- 18:03How to do it successfully
- 21:45Where to go from here
- 22:32Outro
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