Understand technical debt as Ward Cunningham meant it — a deliberate, sometimes wise borrowing against future speed that accrues interest if ignored. Learn to distinguish principal from interest, deliberate from inadvertent debt, and to build a risk-scored register that finally makes the business case for paying it down.
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Why shortcuts pile up and why it matters — free to watch, no account needed.
What you'll learn
- Explain technical debt in business terms using Ward Cunningham's metaphor of principal and interest
- Distinguish deliberate from inadvertent debt, and prudent from reckless, using Fowler's quadrant
- Score technical debt items by business risk rather than engineering annoyance
- Make the case to a sponsor for allocating capacity to debt paydown
- Build a one-page Technical Debt Risk Register your team can maintain and act on
Syllabus
What Technical Debt Really Is
Why shortcuts pile up and why it mattersFree preview
Cunningham's metaphor — principal and interest
Classifying and Scoring Debt
Fowler's quadrant — prudent, reckless, deliberate, inadvertent
Scoring debt by business risk, not engineering annoyance
Making Debt Visible in Real IT Work
Making debt visible and managing paydown
Case study — the debt the sponsor keeps deprioritising
Making It Stick
Building your Technical Debt Risk Register
Common traps and anti-patterns to avoid