# Technical Debt and System Debt Map ## Map type Bridge map. Use this map when someone arrives through the familiar term **technical debt** and needs a wider, more useful frame for debt in work systems. ## Reader summary Technical debt matters, but it is not the whole story. Owlery treats technical debt as one form of [[System Debt]]: deferred maintenance, adaptation, reasoning, or understanding that someone will eventually have to pay for. The aim is not to shame teams for debt. The aim is to make debt visible, classify it, understand what it bought, understand what interest it is charging, and decide how to repay or prevent it. ## Start here - [[Technical Debt]] — familiar engineering entry point. - [[System Debt]] — broader canonical frame. - [[Four Kinds of Debt in Systems]] — technical, evolutionary, cognitive, and epistemic debt. - [[Technical Neglect]] — when debt is the symptom and repeated neglect is the cause. ## Core debt patterns - [[Technical Debt]] — debt as an intentional, visible, repayable trade-off. - [[Technical Neglect]] — debt as the result of missing maintenance and care. - [[Debt Needs Classification Sizing and Portfolio Thinking]] — debt as a portfolio of different types and sizes. - [[Debt Has a Human Cost]] — debt as lived friction, shame, frustration, and capability loss. - [[Debt Repayment Can Get Worse Before It Gets Better]] — repayment as a transition with a messy middle. ## Useful tools - [[Debt Classification and Repayment Canvas]] — classify, size, and plan repayment. - [[Debt Portfolio Review]] — see debt as a portfolio, not a shame list. - Neglect Pattern Scan — find the maintenance or learning that keeps being deferred. - [[Human Cost of Debt Review]] — make human cost visible without blame. - [[Debt Repayment Transition Plan]] — protect repayment through the messy middle. - Solve Remedy or Backlog Decision — decide whether to solve, temporarily remedy, or consciously backlog. ## Role routes - For Tech Leads — technical judgement, translation, and debt conversations. - For Engineers and Individual Contributors — surfacing debt without turning it into blame. - For Delivery and Programme Leads — sequencing repayment, managing dependencies, and making risk visible. - For Leaders and Sponsors — creating capacity and legitimacy for repayment. ## Field questions - What did this debt buy us? - Who knows we took it? - What interest is it charging now? - Is this really debt, or is it neglect, cruft, or a mess? - Is the pain individual, team-level, customer-facing, or organisational? - What must keep running while repayment happens? - What capacity is protected until the debt actually decreases? ## See also - [[System Debt Map]] - Flow Constraints and Work Visibility Map - [[Governance Autonomy and Power Map]] - Knowledge Sharing and Learning Ecosystems Map