Acceligence CEO Coins 2 New IT Terms to Recast Misused 'Technical Debt'

1 articles · Updated · Computerworld · Sep 29

Justin Greis argued "technical debt" should describe only deliberate, management-approved shortcuts taken to save time or money, not every aging or hard-to-modernize system.
Acceligence instead proposes two labels: "shadow tech debt" for unapproved shortcuts that create future costs, and "tech gravity" for legacy platforms whose age and centrality make them hard to replace.
Greis said the distinction matters because debt framing can push boards and CFOs to underfund modernization, treating core-platform replacement like gradual balance repayment rather than a program needing minimum commitment to finish.
He also said enterprises often modernize customer-facing edges while core systems stay put, leaving risk, run costs and delivery delays largely unchanged even as reported modernization percentages rise.
The broader aim is to give CIOs clearer language for boards and CEOs, reducing vendor-driven confusion and helping set more realistic budgets, timelines and ROI expectations.