As engineers we should be more clear about what this 'debt' actually is to one another (since we’re the ones that see and feel it).

However, I’ve found describing underlying tech issues to people outside engineering can incredibly hard since it’s often a few layers below directly helping create value for customers. Calling it 'technical debt' helps them to understand the importance of working on these tasks, even if they don’t fully understand that task itself.

If we had enough data and time I’m sure we could fix this communication problem and prove each tech debt task is providing business value in a specific way… But if I had all that time I probably wouldn’t be taking shortcuts in the first place, and I’d be investing it in fixing the issues instead.