[KingOfCoders]

I tell all my coachees not to use "technical debt" outside of technology, if ever. Same goes for the phrase "refactoring", don't use it outside technology.

[romwell]

What do they try to use it for?

I've only ever seen these terms used in programming contexts

[KingOfCoders]

I often see people try to use it as a lever to prioritize technical changes, migrations or refactorings against business features.

But the result is just that people outside technology think technology is clueless and "they have debt, whatever that means".

[romwell]

Ah. Easy problem.

"We have technical debt to repay" = bad

"We outgrew the choices we made that allowed us to grow fast, and need to refresh our product to sustain the growth rate" = actually means what we want to say

Makes it clear that prioritizing new features will come at the expense of growth. Which is ultimately what the stakeholders really care about.