Every time someone on your team says "we'll clean it up later," they're taking out a loan. The problem is that almost nobody checks the interest rate — until it bankrupts an entire sprint. Technical debt is the most-used and least-understood metaphor in software. Used well, the metaphor is genuinely powerful, because debt is exactly the right mental model — including the part everyone forgets: interest. Debt isn't the same as bad code First, a correction. Technical debt isn't...