Glossary
By the Glue Team
Technical debt prioritization is the process of deciding which technical debt to address first. Since resources are limited, teams must choose high-impact debt to pay down. Without prioritization, teams waste effort on debt that doesn't affect business outcomes.
Technical debt prioritization involves:
High-priority debt is usually: in frequently-changing code, blocks new features, causes production incidents, or slows down the team most.
Low-priority debt is: in stable code, doesn't block work, causes no incidents, affects few people.
Resource Allocation: Fixing all debt is impossible. Prioritization ensures effort goes where it matters most.
Business Impact: Debt in payment systems matters more than debt in logging. Debt blocking features matters more than debt in stable code.
Team Velocity: Debt that slows the team should be prioritized. Fixing it improves velocity immediately.
Risk Management: Debt causing production incidents should be prioritized. Fix what breaks.
Roadmap Planning: Clear prioritization helps product managers allocate time for debt paydown alongside feature work.
Impact vs. Effort: Plot debt on two axes. High-impact, low-effort debt is prioritized (quick wins). Low-impact, high-effort debt is last. Use this to rank items.
Risk-Based: Prioritize debt causing incidents. Then debt blocking new features. Then debt causing slow development.
Velocity Correlation: Which debt correlates with slower features? Prioritize that.
Blocker-Based: What debt blocks the most work? Fix that first.
Cost-Benefit: How much does fixing it save vs. cost? Prioritize high savings.
"All debt is equally bad." False. Debt in stable code has minimal impact. Debt in frequently-changing code is urgent.
"We should prioritize based on how bad it is." False. Prioritize based on impact. A minor bug fix might be higher priority than perfect code in unused code.
"Refactoring should be top priority." False. Refactoring is one form of debt paydown. Prioritize based on business impact.
Technical Debt: The debt being prioritized.
Technical Debt Tracking: Identifying debt to prioritize.
Code Health: Paying down high-priority debt improves health.
Q: How do you know if debt is high-impact? A: Correlate with velocity and incidents. High-impact debt slows the team or causes incidents.
Q: Should product managers be involved in prioritization? A: Yes. They understand business impact. Which blocked features matter most? That informs prioritization.
Q: How often should prioritization be revisited? A: Quarterly. Business needs change. New debt emerges. Re-prioritize regularly.
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