The technical debt explained with LEGO: building quickly has a price
A tower that stands… until you touch it
Imagine you’re asked to build a LEGO tower, but you're on a tight deadline: reach 30 centimeters in 10 minutes. Doesn’t matter how—just make it stand. At first, everything seems to work: fast stacking, random bricks, a structure that quickly takes shape. But as soon as you try to add another level or move the tower, it wobbles, leans, or collapses. The problem isn't the bricks—it’s how you placed them. That’s technical debt.
What is technical debt, really?
Technical debt is the result of architectural or implementation choices made to save time in the short term—often at the cost of code quality, maintainability, and system stability. Like any debt, it’s not inherently bad: it can be a conscious decision to hit a critical release, validate an idea, or handle an emergency. But it needs to be tracked, managed, and repaid. Otherwise, like a hastily built tower, your software becomes fragile, unpredictable, and hard to evolve.
How it builds up, one brick at a time
Technical debt doesn’t always come from big mistakes. It’s often made of tiny compromises: a duplicated function instead of a reusable one, an oversized class, a skipped test, a postponed refactor. In the moment, these may seem harmless. But over time, they pile up. Code gets dense, opaque, and harder to understand. Every new change becomes disproportionately difficult. Just like LEGO bricks, a shaky base compromises the entire structure.
The real cost
You don’t feel the true cost of technical debt right away. It hits later: bugs that are hard to trace, slower development times, frustrated teams, new developers struggling to navigate the codebase. Worst of all, you might reach a point where you can’t build any higher—your only option is to tear it down and start over. In many companies, technical debt is the leading cause of full rewrites or tech stagnation.
Building well, even under pressure
So how do you deal with technical debt? First, by acknowledging it. Like any debt, it needs to be mapped: where it is, how much there is, and what risk it carries. Then, manage it methodically: schedule refactoring time, include it in sprint planning, run critical code reviews, invest in documentation and testing. Building carefully—even when rushing—means placing bricks thoughtfully, even if they’re not visible.
A culture that lasts longer than a release
Technical debt isn’t just a code problem—it’s a culture problem. A software culture that values long-term quality, that rewards maintenance as much as innovation, that’s willing to slow down today to move faster tomorrow. That’s the culture that turns a shaky tower into a solid architecture, ready to grow without falling apart. And yes, even with LEGO, you can build skyscrapers—but only if the first pieces are snapped in right.