I found Martin Fowler's "Technical Debt Quadrant" helpful on this - https://martinfowler.com/bliki/TechnicalDebtQuadrant.html https://martinfowler.com/bliki/Tec

I found Martin Fowler's "Technical Debt Quadrant" helpful on this - https://martinfowler.com/bliki/TechnicalDebtQuadrant.html https://martinfowler.com/bliki/TechnicalDebtQuadrant.html . He argues you can have deliberate and inadvertent debt, both of which can be wise or unwise - the debt metaphor still works.