What is “technical debt” ?

Definition

Technical debt is the cost of additional rework required to implement a new solution. It is often caused by choosing an easy or expedient solution today, which then makes future iterations or enhancements more challenging to deliver.

Ward Cunningham coined the phrase “technical debt”  precisely because of the resemblance to taking out a loan. You can accomplish more today than you normally could, but you end up paying a higher cost later.

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Forrester

Types of technical debt

There topic of technical debt has attracted a lot of research over the years.

Intentional vs unintentional ; reckless or prudent

13 other types

Is “technical debt” bad?

First of all, technical debt is unavoidable. There is no software, product or internal IT implementation in the world that does not have technical debt.

We know, from definitions above, that technical debt can result in lower performance, higher delivery times, delays and additional bugs. So on the surface, technical debt