[brazzledazzle]

Obviously this is about development but that's not the only place where you can accrue technical debt. In operations it's shortcuts or bandaids so you can get something done quickly or fix a production issue "ASAP". While it is a trade off it's a crippling one. Without good engineering principals and management support to regularly pay it down you can easily get to a point where the collective fragility has you putting out fires constantly and no one wants to touch anything.

Unfortunately management often thinks that they're supportive but ask them what project they need to axe or put on the back burner to free up time and the ephemeral promises and deferment to some hazy future date get put on the table.

Perhaps it's not "real" in development but it is very much a real issue that needs to be thought about by anyone in charge of operations.