[hinkley]

Targets of opportunity are problems that have a distinct value in being solved which is less than the naive cost of fixing it.

Not the actual cost of fixing it, the 'drop everything and work on it now' cost, adjusted for Murphy's law. These are often the sort of 'nice to haves' that come out to 3 months of work, which nobody is going to approve unless a customer is actively yelling in their face about it. And sometimes not even then.

Refactoring is Make the Change Easy, Then Make the Easy Change. If you don't know what your targets of opportunity are, because you have some misguided notion that you can't [have an adult conversation about the state of things](https://www.jimcollins.com/concepts/confront-the-brutal-fact...) without tender egos being hurt, then instead of moving toward any of the horizons you'll just sail in a big circle while people keep trying to get you to venture farther afield.

[boredtofears]

The problem I often see is in the evaluation of the naive cost of fixing it versus the actual probability your target of opportunity will become a legitimate design consideration. The naive cost almost always is large but the probability your target of opportunity will be necessary is often small or miniscule. It's easy to try to cover all your bases and write something in an unnecessarily flexible way when a concrete implementation would have solved the immediate requirements succinctly and very likely may not to be touched again for years (if ever again).