Technical Debt

The implied cost of rework caused by choosing an easy, quick solution now instead of a better, more thorough approach that would take longer. Technical debt accumulates when teams cut corners under time pressure — skipping tests, avoiding refactoring, or using workarounds. Like financial debt, it incurs 'interest': each new feature becomes harder and slower to build as the codebase degrades. Managing technical debt is a key responsibility of the development team. Teams allocate a portion of each sprint to paying down debt through refactoring and test coverage improvements. Making technical debt visible to product owners — by sizing it and including it in the backlog — helps prioritize it alongside feature work.