Thanks for these links. I read through the book's examples of Tech Debt.
The book enumerates some examples of failed software projects and calls their failures "Tech Debt".
I have two issues with this.
The first is how fuzzy this still is. This term is thrown over all of these various kinds of failure. And the examples are also quite varied - most are phrased as mere symptoms of failure not root causes, which gives us little insight.
The bigger problem I have is that these examples are retrospective.
If Tech Debt is simply a term for "mistakes I have made", then by all means use it -- obviously in this form it has no strategic/constructive value.
But the way I've seen it typically used is for people to act as if it is akin to real debt, consciously acquired.
"Oh I didn't make this transactional because Tech Debt."
Etc.
And indeed if Tech Debt as a concept is to have any value it should be able to be used this way.
But my objection is that there is no way it can be used as such, because it is far too nebulous a concept to have any navigational benefit.
It gives no helpful path forward. It is purely a euphemism for mistakes. That's how I've seen it used universally, at least.
The book enumerates some examples of failed software projects and calls their failures "Tech Debt".
I have two issues with this.
The first is how fuzzy this still is. This term is thrown over all of these various kinds of failure. And the examples are also quite varied - most are phrased as mere symptoms of failure not root causes, which gives us little insight.
The bigger problem I have is that these examples are retrospective.
If Tech Debt is simply a term for "mistakes I have made", then by all means use it -- obviously in this form it has no strategic/constructive value.
But the way I've seen it typically used is for people to act as if it is akin to real debt, consciously acquired.
"Oh I didn't make this transactional because Tech Debt."
Etc.
And indeed if Tech Debt as a concept is to have any value it should be able to be used this way.
But my objection is that there is no way it can be used as such, because it is far too nebulous a concept to have any navigational benefit.
It gives no helpful path forward. It is purely a euphemism for mistakes. That's how I've seen it used universally, at least.