What is technical debt ?
“Technical debt” is a term used to describe the accrual of deficiencies by omission, inaction or mistake.
Omission – when some part of the solution goes un-purchased for budget reasons, or was not included in the scope for lack of expertise or even just missed. Something missing can be worked around but debt is incurred against lost potential.
Inaction – it’s common to elect to ignore a problem or a system to last a bit longer (upgrade in the next budget cycle) or ignore a problem. Choosing to do or not do is one thing, making no choice will likely incur technical debt.
Mistake – most common technical debt is incurred when a mistake is made in process design or implementation. It may not be detected immediately but likely to lead to problems later. A misconfigured firewall rule might work today …. but not tomorrow.
Pithy saying: “Now is the later the I avoided earlier”
Other Posts in A Series On The Same Topic
- Network Dictionary - Head Down or Head Up (20th October 2015)
- Network Dictionary - Security Blanket Failure (15th September 2015)
- Network Dictionary - Fat Finger (12th September 2015)
- Network Dictionary: Blast Radius (24th June 2015)
- Network Dictionary - Invariant (14th October 2014)
- Network Dictionary: Technical Debt (11th April 2014)
- Network Dictionary - Bias Update (3rd February 2014)
- Network Dictionary: Sonic Screwdriver (30th January 2014)
- Network Dictionary - Washing My Patch Cables (2nd November 2011)
- Network Dictionary - Coin Operated (1st November 2011)
- Network Dictionary - Pinch off a Packet (30th October 2011)
- Network Dictionary - Cloudtard (16th September 2011)
- Network Dictionary - Default Gateway of Blame (11th August 2011)
- Network Dictionary - Negotiable Affection (2nd June 2011)
- Network Dictionary - Reverse Recruiting (3rd February 2011)
- Network Dictionary - percussive maintenance (12th October 2010)
- Network Dictionary - Powerpoint Waterboarding (26th August 2010)
- Network Dictionary - Oral Masturbation (12th April 2010)
- Network Dictionary - consultant (24th March 2010)
- Network Dictionary - Eye Dee Ten Tee (30th January 2010)
- Network Dictionary - Moregasm (27th November 2009)
- Network Dictionary - Backhoe Attenuation (9th October 2009)
- Network Dictionary - Blamestorming (14th February 2009)
- Network Dictionary - velvet rut (26th September 2008)
