Let’s put this to rest: there’s no such thing as “good” technical debt.
If new engineers take weeks to become productive, your system is unreadable. If every change introduces faults, your architecture is fragile. If you’re manually handling tasks that should be automated, you’re building inefficiency into your process.
And here’s the kicker—technical debt doesn’t accumulate linearly. It builds up silently, then one day, it collapses your ability to deliver.
Microsoft learned this the hard way with TFS. They were shipping 24 features per year across a team of 600 engineers. The solution? A complete overhaul in how they worked. They moved to 3-week Sprints, embraced transparency, and started paying back their technical debt.
Stop normalising dysfunction. There’s no “acceptable level” of technical debt—only risk you haven’t accounted for yet.
What’s stopping your team from tackling technical debt head-on?
If you've made it this far, it's worth connecting with our principal consultant and coach, Martin Hinshelwood, for a 30-minute 'ask me anything' call.
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Microsoft
Kongsberg Maritime
Epic Games
Xceptor - Process and Data Automation
Graham & Brown
Philips
Boxit Document Solutions
Schlumberger
Slaughter and May
Emerson Process Management
Brandes Investment Partners L.P.
Qualco
Capita Secure Information Solutions Ltd
Cognizant Microsoft Business Group (MBG)
Flowmaster (a Mentor Graphics Company)
YearUp.org
Genus Breeding Ltd
Higher Education Statistics Agency
Ghana Police Service
Department of Work and Pensions (UK)
Washington Department of Enterprise Services
Royal Air Force
Nottingham County Council
Washington Department of Transport
Healthgrades
ALS Life Sciences
Freadom
Boxit Document Solutions
Big Data for Humans
Deliotte