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Please stop using that term. The idea was to communicate "technical stuff that needs to be done" to product management and sometimes have a lever to rework the

Please stop using that term. The idea was to communicate "technical stuff that needs to be done" to product management and sometimes have a lever to rework the shortcuts taken due to business pressure - in that case it should be called product debt, and not tech debt. Product took out the money (earlier release), not technology. And needs to pay it back with scheduling development work. What I see is that the term makes technology look bad, doesn't work as a lever and demotivates developers. Be a craftman, don't do technical debt. For time to market create a zerocode/crappy MVP that you throw away. Schedule real technical debt like DB migrations and do them as needed.

jayceedenton 4y ago
I do agree that the term feels like a misnomer, but mainly because it gives an air of respectability to simple bad engineering with great cost. The idea is that debt is accrued intentionally and strategically, but everyone is so used to constantly referring to tech debt that just doing a job well has been completely forgotten. If there are real problems, can we just have a list of tasks to improve things? Maybe it's just boredom but the term 'tech debt' doesn't feel that it's doing much good any more. > For time to market create a zerocode/crappy MVP that you throw away. Unfortunately what tends to happen is that as the business sees early success and starts to grow, there is never a stopping point where people are happy to start again and build from scratch 'properly'. That crappy MVP will be extended, adjusted and corrected, until it's something no longer throwaway but also not well built/tested/hosted/monitored/etc. Maybe slow down to go faster is a better approach.
- KingOfCoders 4y ago
  "That crappy MVP will be extended, adjusted and corrected, until it's something no longer throwaway" Yes and from talking to my coachees, this is one of their main problems. I urge them to throw away the MVP when they got funded.

jayceedenton 4y ago

I do agree that the term feels like a misnomer, but mainly because it gives an air of respectability to simple bad engineering with great cost. The idea is that debt is accrued intentionally and strategically, but everyone is so used to constantly referring to tech debt that just doing a job well has been completely forgotten. If there are real problems, can we just have a list of tasks to improve things? Maybe it's just boredom but the term 'tech debt' doesn't feel that it's doing much good any more. > For time to market create a zerocode/crappy MVP that you throw away. Unfortunately what tends to happen is that as the business sees early success and starts to grow, there is never a stopping point where people are happy to start again and build from scratch 'properly'. That crappy MVP will be extended, adjusted and corrected, until it's something no longer throwaway but also not well built/tested/hosted/monitored/etc. Maybe slow down to go faster is a better approach.

KingOfCoders 4y ago
"That crappy MVP will be extended, adjusted and corrected, until it's something no longer throwaway" Yes and from talking to my coachees, this is one of their main problems. I urge them to throw away the MVP when they got funded.