When you work in engineering or operations, you become intimately familiar with the challenges of technical debt. It can be difficult, however, to communicate the full cost to others in the organization, particularly to people who are non-technical. Communicating the risks for software systems that are not directly customer-facing can be especially difficult. For these systems, it can be easy to ignore the technical debt until it becomes crippling.

Colin Breck has been using quality views to highlight technical debt and ensure the risks associated with it are balanced against the product development objectives of the organization. Quality views represent the system holistically, describing where investments are being made and where they are not being made. They highlight risks and demonstrate how the system is evolving over time. He will share his approach, explore examples, and provide some practical advice and observations based on his experience using quality views.

Quality views may help you improve communication in support of tackling technical debt in your organization.