Technical Debt Program/Technical Debt Engagement Model

Overview

The Technical Debt Engagement Model is meant to provide a base structure on how the Technical Debt Program will engage with the various stakeholders. Although engagement requests are welcome, the expectation is that the Technical Debt Program will initiate the engagement. The desire is to keep the engagement model as light-weight as possible, the model has been split into four distinct steps.

Worth noting as well is the desire to develop an approach that works for the team while also accomplishing the shared organizational objective of reducing technical debt. The Technical Debt Program will work to provide guidance and best practices, but fully understands that a more tailored approach may be necessary, especially early on.

Model Steps

	Kickoff	Reduction	Prevention	Sync-Ups
Who	Code stewards, engineering managers, product manager	Code stewards, engineering managers, tech leads	Code stewards, engineering managers, tech leads, developers	Code stewards + TBD
What	Getting everyone on the same page. Establish common understanding, roles and responsibilities, set desired outcomes for the engagements.	Create a baseline understanding of technical debt backlog, Develop strategies to prioritize the backlog, Discuss approaches to addressing prioritized backlog.	Develop strategies to reduce the accumulation of unintentional technical debt. Discuss decision making approaches for intentional technical debt accumulation. Discuss and develop workflow to track decision making and backlog management.	discuss learnings and potential adjustments discuss/review plans, progress, roadblocks Cross-pollination (share and discuss external experiences)

Engagements

Engagement	Kickoff	Reduction	Prevention	Sync-ups	Status
Search Platform	5/30/18
Platform	5/31/18