We sound like idiots when we talk about technical debt
Controversial idea:<p>Technical debt is something that &#x27;business users&#x27; don&#x27;t need to or want to care about.<p>If you&#x27;re having conversations about technical debt, you&#x27;ve messed up, and you will continue to have unsatisfactory outcomes until you stop doing so.<p>You can&#x27;t tell people; here is a dial, you can pick &#x27;fast and you&#x27;re screwed later&#x27; or &#x27;slow and careful now&#x27;. You&#x27;re setting yourself up for failure; they <i>cannot</i> pick &#x27;slow and careful&#x27;, because that&#x27;s not their job; their job is to quickly deliver value&#x2F;outcomes&#x2F;whatever.<p>Almost no one has a job of &#x27;go do this really slowly and carefully&#x27;.<p>They will always pick fast, and it&#x27;s your problem later.<p>So... don&#x27;t do that. Instead, say: this is how long it will take to do.<p>Not &quot;if we rush we could probably do it in...&quot;; no, if you say that, then why are you not rushing now? Do you not care what the business wants? Do you not have &#x27;skin in the game&#x27;?<p>Say: This is how long it will take, we estimate. If you want it faster, we can cut some features.<p>Then, do enough of a good job so you can continue to deliver value in the future.<p>That&#x27;s literally your job.<p>Doing a rubbish job as quickly as you can is not your job. Not ever.<p>You cannot abrogate responsibility for doing your job properly by saying &quot;but I was told to do this&quot;, if you <i>literally gave them the choice</i> of A or B, where one of those options was &quot;you have to pick this one, and it lets me get away with doing a rubbish job of it&quot;.<p>That&#x27;s <i>YOU</i> choosing to do a rubbish job.<p>...and to be fair, yeah, there are situations where someone will come and tell you &quot;no, do it now&quot;, and that&#x27;s what you have to do... but you also have to come and clean up afterwards. Not because you&#x27;re told to, explicitly, because... it&#x27;s your job.