Chapter 3

Paying debt or shipping features: which ruler decides?

Trả nợ hay làm tính năng, so bằng thước nào?

The chapter's question

What yardstick do I use to compare paying off a debt with building a feature?

Big idea

Paying down debt competes for the same time budget as features, so they must be compared on the same scale.

In this chapter

  1. Part 3.1

    Turning Debt Into Tickets

    How is a debt item written so it can be ranked alongside features?

  2. Part 3.2

    Tying Debt to the Roadmap

    Which upcoming features will pass through exactly the indebted area of code?

  3. Part 3.3

    A Fixed Percentage

    Is reserving a fixed share of each cycle for debt better than ranking each item?

  4. Part 3.4

    When to Leave Debt Alone

    Which debts sit in parts about to be retired and should just be left?

The reading for this chapter is inside Conan School

This chapter has 4 readings, with case stories and exercises. Chapter 1 of The Debt Nobody Sees is free to read right here.

Read in Conan School

Chapters of The Debt Nobody Sees

  1. 1.Is tech debt really just an engineering problem?
  2. 2.Engineers mention debt, so why can't I see the cost?
  3. 3.Paying debt or shipping features: which ruler decides?
  4. 4.Will the boss accept fewer features this quarter?
  5. 5.Who really creates the tech debt?