Do tech debt sprints work?

From my experience... no. A dedicated tech debt sprint sounds nice but it's too easy to derail.

Let me explain.

In our early startup days, we recognized that we wanted to invest in reducing tech debt. We found it hard to get scheduled with all of the other priorities though.

An entire sprint we could periodically schedule, say every 3rd or 4th sprint, would mean we could have PURE FOCUS on paying down that debt!

It would be a DREAM to have dedicated focus time for that.

The problem?

The values we placed on our priorities didn't change. Our tech debt sprint would start and inevitably high-priority features and fixes would roll in mid-sprint. Tech debt work would be disrupted.

This didn't work for us (but it could work for you). What had to change for us was:
Alignment of values
Less aggressive context switching
More clearly communicating value of tech debt areas

There wasn't an "easy" fix. It took changing our culture from engineering through to our leadership. But more clear communication was the core of that.

Check the comments for the full video!

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