Last updated on June 12th, 2021 at 02:20 pm
Organizational policy is the framework of principles that guide policymakers, decision makers, and everyone in the organization as they carry out their responsibilities. As I use the term in this blog, a policymaker is someone who’s responsible for developing, revising, or approving organizational policies. The group of policymakers also includes those who contribute to the policy development process at the content level.
Some organizational policies that don’t mention technical debt explicitly can affect the way the organization manages technical debt. For this reason, all policymakers potentially affect to technical debt management. See, for example, “Performance management systems and technical debt.” And this creates problems for organizations as they confront the problem of controlling the formation of technical debt.
The problem is that many policymakers are unaware that their work affects the rate of formation of technical debt. Many would deny it, some vociferously. Programs for managing technical debt must address the problem of educating policymakers as to their role in technical debt formation.
That’s why in this blog I try to address the needs of all policymakers relative to the effects of their decisions on technical debt management. You’ll find relatively little technical content here. But you’ll also find here find discussions of behaviors, biases, and organizational structures that aren’t usually present in discussions of technical debt management.
