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Technical Debt Quadrant

TTool · Technical Debt Quadrant

By , Editor · · What’s Next

The backlog says "tech debt" in six places. Nobody can explain which items are deliberate choices and which are accidents. The remediation conversation keeps stalling.

Technical Debt Quadrant is Martin Fowler's classification framework. You categorise debt along two axes — deliberate versus inadvertent, and reckless versus prudent — producing four quadrants that demand different responses.

A 2x2 matrix with vertical axis "impact on the work" (high to low) and horizontal axis "cost of living with it" (low to high), splitting debt into four quadrants: fix first, schedule, decide, and tidy in passing.
Method visual — Technical Debt Quadrant
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