tomevault-io Tech Debt Prioritizer
Systematically prioritize and pay down technical debt.
Scoring Rubric
Impact Score (1-10)
10 - Critical:
- Prevents new features
- Causes frequent prod incidents
- Blocks multiple teams
7-9 - High:
- Significantly slows development
- Causes occasional incidents
- Affects one team heavily
4-6 - Medium:
- Moderate development friction
- Rare incidents
- Workarounds exist
1-3 - Low:
- Minor annoyance
- No incidents
- Easy workarounds
Risk Score (1-10)
10 - Critical:
- Security vulnerability
- Data integrity issues
- Legal/compliance risk
7-9 - High:
- Potential data loss
- System instability
- Vendor end-of-life soon
4-6 - Medium:
- Performance degradation
- Occasional failures
- Deprecated but working
1-3 - Low:
- Code quality issues
- Minor bugs
- Style inconsistencies
Effort Score (1-10)
10 - Herculean:
- 3+ months
- Multiple teams
- High risk changes
7-9 - Large:
- 1-3 months
- One team
- Medium risk
4-6 - Medium:
- 1-4 weeks
- 1-2 developers
- Low risk
1-3 - Small:
- Days
- Single developer
- Very low risk
Priority Formula
Priority Score = (Impact * 2 + Risk * 1.5) / Effort
Higher score = Higher priority
Tech Debt Inventory
| ID | Title | Impact | Risk | Effort | Score | Owner |
| ------ | ---------------------- | ------ | ---- | ------ | ----- | --------- |
| TD-001 | Legacy auth system | 9 | 10 | 8 | 3.7 | Auth Team |
| TD-002 | No database indexes | 8 | 7 | 3 | 7.8 | Backend |
| TD-003 | Monolithic build | 7 | 4 | 6 | 4.0 | DevOps |
| TD-004 | Duplicate API logic | 6 | 3 | 4 | 4.1 | Backend |
| TD-005 | Outdated dependencies | 5 | 8 | 2 | 9.0 | All Teams |
| TD-006 | Missing error handling | 4 | 6 | 3 | 5.7 | Backend |
| TD-007 | Poor test coverage | 4 | 5 | 7 | 2.3 | All Teams |
| TD-008 | Inconsistent naming | 3 | 2 | 5 | 1.6 | Frontend |
**Sorted by Priority Score:**
1. TD-005: Outdated dependencies (9.0)
2. TD-002: No database indexes (7.8)
3. TD-006: Missing error handling (5.7)
4. TD-004: Duplicate API logic (4.1)
5. TD-003: Monolithic build (4.0)
...
Detailed Assessment Template
## TD-002: No Database Indexes
### Description
Critical queries lack indexes, causing slow response times and high CPU usage.
### Impact (8/10)
- Search queries take 2-5 seconds (should be <500ms)
- Database CPU at 85% during peak hours
- User complaints about slow searches
- Blocks performance optimization work
### Risk (7/10)
- Database may crash under load
- Losing customers to slow experience
- Cannot scale without addressing
### Effort (3/10)
- Identify missing indexes: 2 days
- Add indexes: 1 day
- Test performance: 1 day
- Deploy: 1 day
**Total: 5 days**
### ROI Analysis
**Cost:** 5 developer-days = $5,000
**Benefit:**
- 80% faster queries
- 50% less DB CPU
- Better user experience
- Enables scaling
**ROI:** Very High
### Implementation Plan
1. Run EXPLAIN on slow queries
2. Identify missing indexes
3. Add indexes in development
4. Test query performance
5. Deploy to production (off-peak)
6. Monitor impact
### Dependencies
- None (can start immediately)
### Owner
Backend Team
### Status
Backlog → Prioritized for Q1
Quarterly Paydown Plan
# Q1 2024 Tech Debt Paydown
**Budget:** 20% of engineering time (4 weeks total)
## Week 1-2: High Priority
- TD-005: Update dependencies (2 days)
- TD-002: Add database indexes (5 days)
- TD-006: Add error handling (3 days)
## Week 3: Medium Priority
- TD-004: Eliminate duplicate logic (5 days)
## Week 4: Quick Wins
- TD-012: Fix broken tests (2 days)
- TD-015: Remove dead code (2 days)
- TD-018: Update README (1 day)
## Success Metrics
- Reduce P1 incidents by 30%
- Improve deployment confidence
- Decrease development friction
- Team morale improvement
Decision Framework
When to Pay Down Debt
Pay down NOW if:
- Security vulnerability
- Causing frequent incidents
- Blocking critical features
- High impact, low effort
Pay down SOON if:
- Slowing development significantly
- Medium-high risk
- Reasonable effort
Defer if:
- Low impact and low risk
- Very high effort
- Better alternatives exist
When to Increase Budget
**Indicators debt budget needs increase:**
- Velocity declining
- Incident rate increasing
- Developer satisfaction down
- Onboarding time increasing
- "It's too hard to..." complaints
Tech Debt Registry
interface TechDebt {
id: string;
title: string;
description: string;
// Scoring
impact: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10;
risk: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10;
effort: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10;
// Metadata
owner: string;
createdAt: Date;
targetQuarter?: string;
status: "backlog" | "prioritized" | "in-progress" | "done";
// Context
affectedSystems: string[];
relatedDebt: string[];
// Plan
implementationPlan?: string;
roi?: "low" | "medium" | "high" | "very-high";
}
Quarterly Review Process
1. **Collect new debt** (Week 1)
- Team submits tech debt items
- Engineering leads review and score
2. **Prioritize** (Week 2)
- Calculate priority scores
- Review high-priority items
- Assign owners
3. **Plan quarter** (Week 3)
- Allocate 10-20% capacity
- Schedule work
- Set success metrics
4. **Review results** (End of quarter)
- Measure impact
- Adjust process
- Celebrate wins
Best Practices
- Track systematically: Don't rely on memory
- Score objectively: Use rubric consistently
- Regular reviews: Quarterly minimum
- Budget time: 10-20% of sprint capacity
- Quick wins: Include easy items for morale
- Measure impact: Track improvements
- Make visible: Dashboard, reports
- No judgment: Tech debt is normal
Output Checklist
- Tech debt items catalogued
- Impact/risk/effort scores assigned
- Priority scores calculated
- Items ranked by priority
- Top 10 items detailed
- Quarterly plan created
- Budget allocated (% of time)
- Owners assigned
- Success metrics defined
- Review cadence established
Converted and distributed by TomeVault — claim your Tome and manage your conversions.