2. Beth Linker
* Sr. Dir. of Prod Mgmt @ Acquia (we’re hiring!)
* Former software engineer/architect
3. Who IsThisTalk For?
× Product managers working on complex
software products
× Product managers who want to better
understand their technical teams’
challenges
× Product managers who feel a sense of
despair when they ask their technical
teams for estimates
4. Tech Debt Defined
× Previous technical decisions (or non-
decisions) that are no longer working for
you
× //TODO: Clean this up later!!!
5. Symptoms ofTech Debt
× Time to roll out new releases goes up
× Changes break in production because they’re
harder to test
× Onboarding new engineers takes a really long
time
× Experienced engineers are frustrated and
unhappy
× New features seem impossible
6. Origins ofTech Debt
× Sometimes you
take on tech debt
in order to hit a
critical business
target
× Most of the time
it’s not that
calculated
Source: https://martinfowler.com/bliki/TechnicalDebtQuadrant.html
7. Everybody’s GotTech Debt
× Commercial success
leaves tech debt in its
wake
× Fast growth
× Demanding customers
× Nobody gets to the
Magic Quadrant
without tech debt
Tech Debt
Tech Debt
Tech Debt
Tech Debt
8. How Engineers Feel AboutTech Debt
× “It still works, but I don’t
know why”
× ”We need to fix this”
× “It’s so ugly!”
× ”Give us some time to get
this right"
11. Three Easy WaysTo Fail
Your Approach How It Goes Horribly Wrong
• “We need to keep building
features, we don’t have time to
fix that stuff”
• Trust breaks down
• Nothing gets shipped
• “The engineers say we need to
take a year to fix the old stuff”
• The business gets impatient
halfway through
• “We’ll be able to do really great
things after we get to this new
architecture, just bear with us
for a year”
• Customers get impatient
• The market moves on and
you’re building an outdated
solution
12. WhatTo Do Instead
× “Project Portfolio” approach
× Diversification is your friend
× QuickWins
× Big Bets
× Low+Slow Projects
13. Quick Wins
× Top customer problems
× Velocity accelerators
× Customer success pain points
× Almost-finished projects that
need a little more work
14. Big Bets
× What are the key things that would radically
improve your customers’ experience?
× What changes need to happen to make those
things possible?
× How are you going to get your current
customers there?
× How can you break it down so it’s actionable
and show progress every quarter?
15. Low+Slow Projects
× These take patience but can give you a great
payoff when you finish them
× Put a small team on something and don’t
interrupt them OR
× Have a larger team reserve a few story points
per sprint to chip away at a well-defined goal
× Do a low-key rollout and demonstrate some
results
16. Putting It AllTogether
× Use your roadmap to sell the whole portfolio
to your stakeholders:
× Quick wins build confidence and buy you
more time for the big bets
× Big bets justify the investment and motivate
the teams
× Low and slow projects get important things
done without a lot of fuss
17. Three KeyTake-Aways
× Tech debt challenges are really hard and
also really common - you’re not alone!
× Empathize with your engineers, your
customers, and your business
stakeholders
× Use a project portfolio to balance
competing needs and get everyone
aligned to move forward
