Practice: Debt Inventory

Create a basic inventory of technical debt in a system you work with.

Think about a system or codebase you work with regularly. Create a simplified debt inventory.

List 3-5 areas of technical debt you're aware of. Just name them for now.

For each item, describe: What is it? Why is it debt (what would ideal look like)?

For each item, estimate the "interest rate": How often does this cause pain? How severe is the impact?

For each item, estimate the "paydown cost": How much work would it take to address?

Based on interest rate and paydown cost, which item should be addressed first? Why?