pay your debt

we talk a lot about tech debt. but there's another kind of debt i've been noticing lately, especially in product management. decision debt.

what does it look like? a feature everyone agrees on, stuck in "let's validate once more" for three sprints. infinite choices on the table but none of them picked.

and AI has made it worse. when implementing every option costs almost nothing, deciding becomes the expensive part. so teams don't decide. they build all three versions. requirements keep growing because more feels safer. it isn't.

i call it "let's try one more thing" syndrome.

what decision debt leads to:

• lower speed to market
• debt compounds. ALWAYS
• and eventually, decisions get made by default, not by choice.

how to not fall into this trap?

a practical approach: every sub squad or pod should work like a mini organisation, with its own operational doc. this doc gives the much needed guardrails on what not to do, and lets you say yes to the right things a lot faster. it also makes saying no easier. and you should say no, often. build this doc envisioning your squad objectives, goals and values.

and what can leadership do? embrace failures more. a decision can only go two ways, right or wrong. a wrong decision gets measured, learned from, fixed. a delayed decision keeps charging interest and nobody is tracking that.

pay your debt. decide. build less, build better.