I have watched well-meaning programmers, technical leaders, and their managers pour their hearts and souls into managing so-called "technical debt" and I worry that they're not getting very far. I believe that a fundamental misunderstanding from the very beginning has led almost everyone down a dark, painful road towards bitter disappointment, endless bickering, failed projects, mounting Imposter Syndrome, and debilitating learned helplessness. Fortunately, I think we can reverse these trends, at least for ourselves, with a combination of techniques from Extreme Programming and general psychology. No, really! You might be surprised to learn that everyone truly wants the same thing, but that some complexities of the human mind have made that difficult to see. Overcoming this fundamental misunderstanding fits squarely into the category of "simple, not easy", so if we want to make progress, then we'd better start now!
This talk has been presented at TechLead Conference 2025: AI in Orgs, check out the latest edition of this Tech Conference.