Search
Logo
The Modern Leader
Sign Up
Login
Posts
About
Leadership Lab
Courses
All Access
  • Home
  • Posts
  • Discussing debt vs. feature work with your team

Discussing debt vs. feature work with your team

Managing debt vs. feature work is a typical challenge engineering leaders face, especially with requests coming from every direction. This week I discuss my top tips for keeping a healthy balance between debt and feature work and having those sometimes difficult prioritization conversations.

calendar-blank

Dec 12, 2023

•

clock

3 min read

Ah, the classic debate - do we work on engineering debt, or do we work on feature work? How about both? But wait—are we talking about actual engineering debt or customer debt?

When you only have so much time available and everyone has their own priorities, it can be particularly difficult for newer engineering leaders to manage expectations and attempt to make everyone happy. (Spoiler: you’re not going to make everyone happy. There, I just summarized this newsletter in 20 seconds.)

Just kidding.

logo

Subscribe to All Access to read the rest.

Become a paying subscriber of All Access to get access to this post and other subscriber-only content.

Upgrade

A subscription gets you:

  • Gain access to all historical content 4+ weeks old
  • Receive a monthly deep dive on a leadership topic designed to make you a stronger, more influential leader

Reply

or to participate

Get more insights like this


Join 5,000+ engineering leaders getting practical frameworks every Tuesday.

Subscribe
Want to work together?

Here are three ways we can keep the conversation going:

Level up with All Access

Get monthly leadership playbooks, tools, and private audio. Everything you need to lead with more clarity and less chaos.

Join a course

Prefer a structured deep dive? My live and self-paced courses give you frameworks you can use today.

Book a 1:1 session

Need a second brain on a tough situation? You can book a focused advisory call right through the site by booking here.

Keep Reading

No posts found

Content

All Posts

Communication

Leading Teams

Frameworks & Systems

Mindset & Growth

Career & Visibility

Courses

Eng Leadership in the AI Era

Management Fundamentals

Tough Conversations

Connect

Leadership Hotline

LinkedIn

Bluesky

Email