It’s not (only) decision makers that need an explanation, it’s developers. Too many confuse technical debt with technology.
Maybe your kitchen is clean but not so optimized with classic tools. Instead of cooking each meal manually, why not build advanced machines for each category of food, on different sites (microservices and components)?
At first it’s very efficient, but surprise it’s not McDonald’s and the menu needs a change. The first version of the kitchen can adapt relatively fast, but in the second it’s less trivial. It can only accommodate small changes (parameters), otherwise the machines have to be completely reworked. The difficulty is compounded by the dependence of the machines to each other on different sites.
By definition the second version has more technical debt despite having the newer “tech”.
Maybe your kitchen is clean but not so optimized with classic tools. Instead of cooking each meal manually, why not build advanced machines for each category of food, on different sites (microservices and components)?
At first it’s very efficient, but surprise it’s not McDonald’s and the menu needs a change. The first version of the kitchen can adapt relatively fast, but in the second it’s less trivial. It can only accommodate small changes (parameters), otherwise the machines have to be completely reworked. The difficulty is compounded by the dependence of the machines to each other on different sites.
By definition the second version has more technical debt despite having the newer “tech”.