Ward Cunningham coined the term technical debt to describe the trade-offs between engineering costs and short-term business gains. One takes debt only if it justifies a positive return on investment that exceeds the interest cost over time.

Uncle Bob explains how unrealistic or unreasonable choices lead to technical mess, not technical debt. Technical debts are reasonable decisions — they are made deliberately to support business gains, in the face of project constraints that involve cost and time. When these conditions aren’t met, he calls it technical mess rather than debt.

Often, as time passes and with widespread use, the meaning of terms drifts from the original intent. Today, technical debt is often viewed in a negative light. Instead it should be considered as a strategic tool to make valuable decisions, intentionally. What is really problematic is the inability to pay off the debts, or accumulation of debts which never get paid off (not counting the technical mess which is labelled as technical debt).

When I moved to the UK in 2023, it was quite difficult to get a credit card or any facilities to take on debt. I had to demonstrate my ability to manage debt through taking on small debts and repaying them repeatedly, improving my credit score.

Technical Credit Score. Taking a cue from financial services, this might be a better concept to manage technical debt. What matters is the ability and propensity to repay the technical debt, not the fact that the solution involves technical debt in the short term. I would also recommend looking at the financial debt metrics (e.g. debt ratio) to assess the health and maturity of the technology landscape from a technical debt perspective. And if we practice that regularly, it becomes a useful strategy and tool in agile development practices.