[nickysielicki]

> Describing this to company leaders in ways they understand is pretty straight forward. "If we take a week now to fix this problem, we will be able to do 3 times as much work in the same amount of time going forward."

I’d argue that technical debt that can be resolved in a week is not real technical debt.

And when you’re dealing with “real” technical debt, it’s hard to substitute numbers into that sentence without lying through your teeth. “It will probably take us a month to two months to fix this problem and in terms of product launches it’s completely ambiguous how much faster we’re going to be.” isn't nearly as easy of a sale.

[jimbokun]

> and in terms of product launches it’s completely ambiguous how much faster we’re going to be.” isn't nearly as easy of a sale.

Which indicates there really isn't much quantifiable value in the refactoring, and it's probably a poor use of developer time.