>This is wrong. Technical debt is almost always incurred because of the business requirements. They need to be made aware the debt is being incurred at that time so they are aware it will need to be paid down ASAP.
I absolutely loathe doing this - the costs of technical debt are too specific (e.g. 2 hours a week) while the benefits are too diffuse and too hard to measure. If you have a conversation with business people about it it feels like you're having to make a business case for buying pencils.
It would be, but the most realistic, specifc claim you could typically make is that some hypothetical feature that probably hasn't even been dreamed up yet would get done in less time than it normally would.
It's a hard sell, and that's precisely why it doesn't get done.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding. I think "the benefits [of technical debt]" are the reasons for taking on technical debt. When you take on technical debt it's for a specific feature that's needed, not for something that hasn't been dreamed up yet.
I absolutely loathe doing this - the costs of technical debt are too specific (e.g. 2 hours a week) while the benefits are too diffuse and too hard to measure. If you have a conversation with business people about it it feels like you're having to make a business case for buying pencils.