1. What is technical debt?
    1. Anything that dlows down development
    2. Kent Beck's rule for SImple Code
    3. Inefficient manual releases routines
  2. Why is it a problem?
    1. T.D. kills release plans
    2. It kills products (heavy weight problem - does not go away)
    3. It kills companies
    4. It de-motivates everyone
    5. It is expensive to fix
    6. WASTE - more time fixing, less time building new features
  3. Why does it happen?
    1. Short-term thinking
    2. Lack of slack
    3. Unsustainable pace
    4. Not talking about it
    5. Lack of skills
    6. Broken window syndrome
    7. Lack of ownership
  4. How can you detect it?
    1. Customers
    2. Developers
    3. Metrics
      1. Duplication
      2. Test Coverage
      3. Length of methods and classes
      4. Velocity (iteration/release)
  5. How can you avoid it?
    1. Pull scheduling
      1. Sustainable pace
      2. slack time
    2. TDD
    3. Burning visibility of debt
    4. Clear definition of done
      1. Integrated into build
      2. release notes updated
      3. automated test written
  6. How to deal with technical debt
    1. Step 1: Go Slower, Stop accumulating debt
    2. Step 2: (if feasible)
      1. Go even slower
      2. create less each sprint
      3. start paying down
  7. What can you do about it?
    1. Ignore/Denial
    2. Rebuild (expensive/risky)
    3. Remove excess features
    4. Incremental Improvements
      1. Fix a little bit each iteration, while still delivering business value
      2. Refactoring/bug bash sprints
    5. Test Automation Backlog
      1. Determine test needed
      2. Classify tests - risk, cost manual vs automated
      3. Choose prioritization/sort list. E.g. manual test cost, risk, automation test cost
  8. Fix the product not just the product
    1. Technical problems are symptons of process
    2. When a defect slips into a release
      1. Fix the defect
      2. Root Cause Analysis
      3. 5 Why's
      4. Improve process (e.g. unit tests) to reduce risk
  9. Take Away
    1. Talk About the debt
    2. Stop Accumulating It!
    3. Fix incrementally
    4. Fix the process, not just the product