Topic: Technical Debt

Technical Debt Classification: Internal Insight, Not Board Governance

Technical Debt Classification: Internal Insight, Not Board Governance

When Categorising Debt Helps—and When It's Overhead

Technical debt classification helps Product & Engineering teams understand debt composition—but don't expect board engagement on categories. Tag debt-related Key Results by type (deliberate vs accidental, business-blocking vs aesthetic) when debt is a significant problem requiring structured remediation.

Technical Debt Classification: Internal Insight, Not Board Governance
KTLO (Keeping the Lights On): What It Means in Software and Why Your Roadmap Ignores It

KTLO (Keeping the Lights On): What It Means in Software and Why Your Roadmap Ignores It

Stop pretending that 100% of your P&E team is doing feature development

KTLO (Keeping the Lights On) is the essential maintenance work every engineering team must do—bug fixes, security patches, compliance, and technical debt. Most roadmaps pretend it doesn't exist. Here's how to plan honestly and protect your feature capacity.

KTLO (Keeping the Lights On): What It Means in Software and Why Your Roadmap Ignores It
Firebreak Sprints: When Your Entire Engineering Team Needs to Stop and Fix the Foundation

Firebreak Sprints: When Your Entire Engineering Team Needs to Stop and Fix the Foundation

SonarQube just flagged 347 critical security vulnerabilities. Your DORA metrics are in the red. A threading bug is crashing microservices across the platform. Sometimes the whole team needs to stop feature work and fix the foundation. Learn how firebreak sprints work, when to call one, and how to insert them into your roadmap without destroying delivery commitments or losing stakeholder trust.

Firebreak Sprints: When Your Entire Engineering Team Needs to Stop and Fix the Foundation