> Engineers often talk about technical debt as if the codebase is the currency of the realm. It's not. Business Value is the currency of the realm.
"Technical Debt" is a term that exists largely to communicate the idea that the thing it represents increases the dollar cost of both operating the software to deliver constant business value in a steady state, and of delivering changes to the software to continue to deliver the same value as business needs change or to realize additional opportunities to deliver new value.
It is, absolutely and centrally, about business value; ignoring it in decision-making is exactly like ignoring maintenance/operations costs in a capital purchase and considering only acquisition costs.
"Technical Debt" is a term that exists largely to communicate the idea that the thing it represents increases the dollar cost of both operating the software to deliver constant business value in a steady state, and of delivering changes to the software to continue to deliver the same value as business needs change or to realize additional opportunities to deliver new value.
It is, absolutely and centrally, about business value; ignoring it in decision-making is exactly like ignoring maintenance/operations costs in a capital purchase and considering only acquisition costs.