PM Perspective

Kaizen

a Japanese business philosophy of continuous improvement of working practices, personal efficiency, etc.

Kaizen, encourages us to optimize our processes, efficiency, and practices over time. In our last post, we discussed the inevitable accumulation of tech debt as a product scales and explored ways to prioritize addressing it. Now, let’s look at actionable steps for tackling tech debt. As Product Managers (PMs), how can we empower our teams to reduce tech debt while continuing to grow?

The 80/20 Rule

One effective way to address tech debt is to closely monitor the team’s capacity and how their time is allocated each sprint. By tracking the following metrics, we gain insights into how our resources are used:

• New Features: How much of the sprint is spent building new features?

• Bugs: How much time is dedicated to fixing bugs?

• Chores: Time spent on routine tasks like deployments, documentation, and ad hoc requests.

• Research Spikes: Time allocated to exploratory work and prototyping.

• Tech Debt: Time dedicated specifically to reducing tech debt.

With this data, we can start applying the 80/20 rule: ideally, 80% of each sprint should focus on new features, while 20% is reserved for tech debt reduction and continuous improvement (Kaizen). While the 20% allocation is a guideline, teams may adjust it based on their specific tech debt load and composition. The key is to ensure that each sprint dedicates some time to addressing tech debt.

Things to Consider: As we’ll discuss in future posts, it’s crucial to account for “Sprint Delta”—unplanned work that arises during a sprint. PMs need to make judgment calls on whether tech debt or unexpected work should take priority.

Scheduled Block

Another effective strategy, used successfully by various teams, is to block out a specific time during each sprint—say, an afternoon—for focused work on tech debt. This block should be reflected in the team’s capacity planning.

This approach not only signals a commitment to addressing tech debt but also encourages team collaboration, such as pair programming. Working on tech debt together provides a valuable opportunity for team members to ask questions and document knowledge gaps, helping to spread understanding across the team.

What Works for You?

How does your team schedule time to address and reduce tech debt? Are there other methods you’ve found helpful?