You're facing technical debt and project deadlines. How do you decide which takes priority?

In software industry, deadline gets the top priority. However, while evaluating the priority b/w deadline and tech debt, below params can be considered - > outcome of tech debt vs deadline. > what is the outcome of achieving the deadline, many a time deadline is just a client need but client may have some other option to deal with. >By not attempting tech debt, what is the near future problem or challenge. If the tech debt would be the potential showstopper in scalability, performance and if impacts other customers or deliverables, "tech debt" must get higher priority compare to deadline. I would say -find some intermediate route. (1) Fix something in tech debt and (2) compromise the deadline(not much) or feature.

Typically, there are two major reasons why a project encounters Technical debt 1. Poor scope clarification, often due to communication failures and unclear client or customer requirements, leading to rapid scope triage and compromises. 2. Poor resource planning, including inadequate allocation of resources, time, and budgetary constraints, leading to shortcuts and quick fixes that accumulate as technical debt. Is the goal to develop new features or develop impactful features. Priority should be given to delivering the best value within the time and budgetary constraints, not just churning out features to meet deadlines and communicating with stakeholders to set a clear definition of done.

Always do it once and do it right. Too much messiness in following up later. Get a better staff to make things simple. Have a floating group of QA staff that can be called to help resolve the tech debt issue. Better to work hard now than to suffer later. Good tech leadership is aware of tech issues from the outset so that a competent staff is assigned that job. A good staff is 10 times more productive with difficult work to the benefit of everyone in team.

Yes it is correct that business opportunities if huge overide all things. An innovative solution may be the outcome hopefully. A good enough solution to capture the business needs is more important but only if a good solution can be found... many ways to skin a cat in application solution. Don't add risk to an important business launch. Do your testing in parallel to dev to save time etc

When faced with a no-win situation, recognising that each project has its inherent risks is crucial, that way remedial solutions proactively thought of at inception can be implemented. Often we let contractual commitments and deadlines affect the quality of the work. Poorly executed deliverables has a snowball effect on future project outcomes. Proper risk planning must account for this with its associated mitigation measures.

Try not to explain too much. This is like covering yourself and give no confidence to the overall team. Size up your risks as it is a technical solution that could be better done to meet deadlines. Brainstorm with the smart ones and hope that a good quality beautiful solution emerge

Identify which stakeholders need to be in the loop and which aren’t, if not you may end up spending more time on addressing concerns than implementing solutions.