Stop Talking About Tech Debt and Focus on Technical Risk

In the world of software development, the term “technical debt” is ubiquitous. It refers to the “cost” that arises when organizations choose a quick and easy solution over a more sustainable long-term approach, or when solutions are bolted onto a system that was never intended to fit an emergent business need.

While it’s essential to address tech debt within technical circles, it’s also helpful to think in a business-centric manner and address “technical risk” instead.

The Problem with “Tech Debt”

To tech teams, debt feels like student loans or mortgages—real obligations that need to be paid down. But to the broader business, it feels more like the national debt—something abstract and not impactful to their daily lives.

This is why tech debt projects often don’t get funded.

One obvious problem with the term “Tech Debt” is that it’s an overgeneralized term, generally translated to “The code sucks.” That’s not a compelling business case.

What is Technical Risk?

Technical risk refers to the characteristics of a production system that can or will jeopardize the success of future work and/or business operations.

This framing matters because it:

• Connects directly to business outcomes
• Creates urgency around specific, identifiable issues
• Allows for prioritization based on impact

Technical risk increases over time unless there is constant investment in the upkeep of production systems.

The Solution: Start with Business Goals

Managing technical risk requires a proactive approach that begins with understanding business goals. This first step is vital to get right, yet it is often skipped completely when discussing tech debt.

Before making a case for a tech debt project, consider the business focus for the next 12–18 months.

For instance, if your company’s primary focus over the next 12 months is adding new features, but your codebase has assumptions and hardcoded values baked into it, you should point to this as a major risk for the business’s goals and push for genericizing the code as a precursor to new feature development.

Making the Case

When you reframe tech debt as technical risk, you’re speaking the language of the business:

• Instead of: “We need to refactor the payment module”

• Say: “Our payment module creates risk for our Q3 expansion into new markets”

• Instead of: “This code is hard to maintain”

• Say: “Our current architecture will slow feature delivery by 40% as we scale”

The goal isn’t to trick anyone—it’s to communicate the real stakes in terms that resonate across the organization.

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Originally published on the KOHO Tech Blog.