nosewheelie

A nice summary on technical debt. I’ve noticed (again) on the current project I’m on that there is a limit (measure in 1-2 weeks) on how long you can go before reigning debt in, i.e. before it becomes unmanageable.

The term “technical debt” was coined by Ward Cunningham to describe the obligation that a software organization incurs when it chooses a design or construction approach that’s expedient in the short term but that increases complexity and is more costly in the long term.

Ward didn’t develop the metaphor in very much depth. The few other people who have discussed technical debt seem to use the metaphor mainly to communicate the concept to technical staff. I agree that it’s a useful metaphor for communicating with technical staff, but I’m more interested in the metaphor’s incredibly rich ability to explain a critical technical concept to non-technical project stakeholders.

Source: Technical Debt