Technology at work
Tech debt
The future cost of shortcuts taken in software today: quick fixes, skipped tests, outdated parts left in place. Like a loan, it lets you move faster now, and the interest is paid later in slower changes, more bugs and more outages. Short for technical debt.
You'll hear it as
We can't add that feature until we pay down some tech debt in billing.
Why it matters to you.
Managers fund things they understand. "Tech debt" means little to them, but "this is costing us two weeks on every billing change, and fixing it takes three" is a business case they can say yes to.
Also called Technical debt.
Related terms.
Videos.
No video mentions Tech debt by name yet. These are on the same topic, Leadership, management & mentoring.