Technical Strategy

Tech debt prioritization framework

When to use

Use when planning a quarter and negotiating tech debt capacity with product. Having a framework prevents the annual 'we need to stop and rewrite everything' conversation.

Prompt Template

My team has accumulated significant tech debt. Here's what we're dealing with: {debt_items} Our business context: {business_context}. Team capacity: {capacity}. Help me: 1. Score each item on: blast radius (how many teams/features does it affect), velocity drag (how much does it slow us down weekly), risk (what breaks if we don't fix it), and effort 2. Create a prioritized roadmap that interleaves debt paydown with feature work 3. Frame this for my product counterpart who thinks all tech debt work is gold-plating 4. Suggest a sustainable 'tech debt budget' (% of capacity) with guardrails 5. Define 'done' for each item so we don't gold-plate it ourselves

Fill & Run

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Debt Items

Business Context

Capacity

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Output Format

Scored matrix + quarterly roadmap + product stakeholder talking points

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