If you can’t change your plans, you shouldn’t be planning. This isn’t a complicated post – if you aren’t willing to change your plan – you shouldn’t be planning. Because plans always change.
Fixes are minor annoyances that bug us and hold us back. Add a label, change the field, move a button to the right, add a new page, clean up the navigation, add in some extra fields, show this as a grid, use a different UI widget, etc, etc. Fixes are a long list, they are the backlog that drags on forever that you open up and say – “Does this stuff still matter?” They do,…
What product are you shipping? Is it your code? Your writing? Your art? It probably isn’t what you think it is and/or at least not in the tangible form that you would associate with being a typical product. It’s something more, something bigger. Your value. Your integrity. Your work ethic. Your drive. Your delivery. Your initiative. Maybe it’s all these, maybe it’s more – but that’s your product, that’s what you’re shipping, that’s what people…
Do you know what you’re up against? Another team? Another product? Another competitor? Is that what you’re up against or is that what is easy to write down that you’re up against? Perhaps it’s more… Your own ideas? Your ability to execute? Your own ambition? The other person down the hall who is trying to get work done as quickly as you? The podcast that ships out content 2 days before you? You might not…
When faced with an unsurmountable pile of tech debt there is one question you have to ask yourself first. Do we need this? If the answer is no, then chances are you don’t need it and the energy you are putting into it (mental and physical) isn’t worth it. At that point it isn’t Tech Debt anymore, it’s just stuff that’s there that you don’t need anymore. No one puts effort into “things” they don’t…