It's pretty hard to get away from the term technical debt these days; the bane of development projects, to be avoided at all costs. I prefer to think of it a little differently - as a tool.
Businesses use financial debt as a tool - why not technical debt? Financial debt works best when it bridges a short-term gap, when it helps a business achieve an outsized return that far exceeds the cost of borrowing.
We can use technical debt in the same way; a quick hack here, a bit of tight coupling there - it may offend the "purist" in your team, but it could be the difference between getting a revenue generating service online (and paying down that technical debt), or never actually getting to market.
Just make sure you don't miss your repayments.
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I agree. Sometimes deadlines simply loom, and you have to make a choice. Delay the project (again?) Or compromise.
I let my team compromise in certain areas after we've discussed the issue, but they have to raise an issue tagged technical debt so we have the full balance sheet of debt.
That's a really nice approach :)