[cowanon44]

I find Microsoft's 5 Pillars in their Well-Formed Architecture to be a useful way to explain this to non-technical people.

At the start of a project, fully focusing on your features makes sense. But as a project grows, non-functional concerns can sabotage the business model if not addressed.

- Reliability

- Security

- Cost optimization

- Performance Efficiency

- Operational Excellence

The first four have a direct impact on the customer. Buggy or insecure software, or excess costs, will all affect the customer directly.

The fifth point is about devops, and making sure that we can continuously (as a process) meet the customer's needs in all of these areas.

I've found that if I can fit refactoring into one of these pillars, it is much easier to explain to non-technical people. Of course, some people just can't be helped, and aren't open to alternate ways to think about software projects.