The original title is: "Technical Debt Isn't an Engineering Problem—It's an Accounting Problem"

Short summary

Technical debt should be treated as a business liability, not just an engineering concern. The article argues for measuring debt in business-impact terms (incidents, engineer-hours, release delays) rather than engineering jargon, and provides a four-category prioritization framework. Practical recommendations include reserving 20% of every sprint for technical improvements and using the Strangler Fig Pattern instead of full rewrites.

• •Frame technical debt in business-impact language leadership understands
• •Classify debt items by impact and effort into four prioritization categories
• •Reserve 20% sprint capacity for continuous technical improvements; avoid full rewrites

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