Technical Debt Inventory and Attributes

The Technical Debt Management Best Practices document defines the broader management discipline for Technical Debt. It explains the enterprise principles, governance model, lifecycle, roles, decision rights, qualification practices, assessment methods, materiality and priority decisions, acceptance and deferral controls, funding and remediation practices, validation and closure requirements, reporting, prevention, and continuous improvement needed to manage Technical Debt consistently across Assets and portfolios.

The Technical Debt Inventory and Attributes document defines the governed information model that supports and operationalizes those practices. It specifies the authoritative Technical Debt Item record, attribute categories, controlled values, cross-inventory relationships, maturity guidance, provenance, evidence, and progressive completeness requirements used to record and manage individual Technical Debt Items from initial capture through closure and possible reopening.

The documents are complementary and should be used together. The Best Practices document explains what enterprises should do and why; the Inventory defines what information must be governed so those practices can be performed consistently, automated where appropriate, audited, measured, and improved. The Best Practices document should retain governance rationale and operating guidance without duplicating the Inventory’s detailed attribute dictionary, while this Inventory should reference the Best Practices document rather than repeating its full management methodology.