Being Agile: Eleven Breakthrough Techniques to Keep You from “Waterfalling Backward”

Technical Debt

Technical debt is a type of waste that has garnered a lot of press because the metaphor of “debt” succinctly calls attention to the fact that there are costs associated with it (as there are with all forms of debt). Technical debt is the term Ward Cunningham used to describe the situation occurring when short-term software design solutions are used at the cost of the longer-term viability of the code. There can be good reasons to take shortcuts to release code sooner—even knowing that the team is taking on debt as the result of the decision. In fact, Eric Ries introduced the concept of the Minimum Viable Product⁵ that encourages teams to get a product out quickly to provide rapid learning about whether the product will succeed ...