Leader: tech debt management
Technical debt management from a leader's point of view, built on the measured history of one repository. The course follows a lint job that stayed red for six days and 361 commits, and separates debt that arrives in steps from debt that compounds in slopes. It sorts debt into five categories with different decay rates and funding models. It compares ways to allocate capacity and orders work as instruments, then capabilities, then structure. It also covers framing debt on a product roadmap, ratchets, stopping rules, rewrites and planning a quarter.
What you'll learn
- ✓How debt arrives in steps and compounds in slopes
- ✓Sorting debt into five categories with their own funding models
- ✓Choosing how team capacity goes to debt work
- ✓Sequencing debt items with a dependency graph
- ✓Framing debt on a roadmap as a tax, prerequisite or enabler
- ✓Using ratchets and stopping rules, and when to accept an item
How debt actually arrives
Technical debt is usually described as gradual: a slow accumulation, a slope. In this repository it is measurable, and it is not a slope.
Read the full lesson free →Curriculum
7 lessonsHow debt actually arrives
A lint job that broke at one commit and stayed red for 361 commits shows how debt compounds.
Debt as a portfolio
Five debt categories decay at different rates and need different funding, so manage them by category, not severity.
How much capacity
Compares four ways to allocate capacity to debt, the three exceptions to attaching it to work, and output signals.
Sequencing beats amount
A dependency graph of eight debt items shows why the order of work matters more than the amount.
Debt in a product roadmap
Four ways to put debt on a roadmap: line item, tax, prerequisite and enabler, and when each one fits.
Knowing when to stop
Ratchets, stopping rules, rewrites and accepting items, plus the one state never acceptable: a signal nobody reads.
Putting it together: a quarter
One quarter applies the approach: fix instruments first, categorize the register, argue two roadmap items, then review.