IDG Contributor Network: What my backyard squirrel taught me about technical debt

We have had a long-standing feud with a squirrel who lives somewhere in our backyard. The issue: he insists on eating the bird food that we diligently keep filling out in the feeders every day of the summer. I would be OK if the squirrel ate a bit and left the rest for the birds, but no – he insists on gobbling up all the content in the feeder, leaving very little for the hapless birds.The squirrel is a metaphor for technical debt that gobbles up the vast majority of healthcare IT budgets