You have tech debt you need to address. If only you had dedicated time to fix that one longstanding issue, that one bug that you hate, or redo that thorny part of your data model. The list goes on.
It’s a tale as old as time.
Here’s the thing. Your role exists only because the business is alive. And the business lives because your customers are getting value from your software.
Asking the business to “hold on” while you go fix something that doesn’t directly deliver value is going to be a tough sell. And it SHOULD be a tough sell. That means someone, somewhere is holding your feet to the fire on a cost/benefit decision.
Instead, nest your tech debt into your feature work or your bug fixes. This will keep you grounded and help you prioritize. It will also help your stakeholders understand the value of the problem you’re solving. Fixing your whole data model to address a low priority bug that nobody will ever see is a real questionable use of your time.
Furthermore, even if you are granted permission to work on your tech debt, you should absolutely still nest it under some kind of deliverable value anyway. If you don’t do this, you run the very real risk of balooning the scope of your work. And it’s especially true if you have a manager who isn’t experienced with such projects, maybe doesn’t have the air cover to hold you accountable, or a myriad other reasons.
Engineering is often the most expensive team in a company. Be a good steward of those resources and always deliver value when you ship code.
Always deliver value