How To Tackle Code Debt While Keeping Features On Track

Managing a technical debt sprint without slowing down releases requires methodical preparation and transparent dialogue. The core principle is to integrate technical debt reduction into your existing workflow rather than isolating it as a one-off effort.



Start by identifying the most debilitating areas of code debt that are actively slowing down development. These should be prioritized based on their impact on product pace, system health, and team engagement.



Work with your product owner to connect them to customer and revenue impact—for example, showing how fixing a flaky integration reduces customer support tickets or how refactoring a core module speeds up future feature development.



After ranking the items allocate a focused yet sustainable portion of each sprint—around one-fifth—to quality-related backlog items. This prevents the backlog from growing while still allowing new features to move forward.



Break down large debt items into small, testable, and deliverable chunks so they can be wrapped up by sprint end.



Make sure each task has explicit success conditions and is treated with equal scrutiny as new functionality.



Foster cross-functional ownership in the process—coders, QA engineers, and stakeholders—to establish mutual responsibility.



CD safeguards to protect existing functionality as you restructure.



If potential risks arise during the sprint, be prepared to halt and reevaluate, but stay within boundaries by adhering to sprint commitments.



Lastly, quantify and broadcast impact: нужна команда разработчиков record gains in deployment speed, mean time to recover, or test pass rates to highlight the business benefit.



Over time this steady, sustainable practice turns code quality governance into a normalized practice rather than a last-minute scramble.