Ultimately, everything can be debt. If code is technical debt, a HR system or a process that you implement for the company at that particular point in time is also a debt (process debt? HR debt? debt nonetheless).
If we are trying to deliver fast by expediting software development and taking shortcuts (technical debt), another department can also do something similar (quick, our HR process is slow and cumbersome, implement that HR system) - which would solve the particular issues for the business at that particular point in time, but may not the needs of the business later on.
For software, the issue is that we believe we can introduce technical debts, that is, it is permissible to introduce and talk about technical debts. We wouldn't necessarily talk about implementing a new HR system often.
We think writing a line of code is fast (and define what "fast" means) but it isn't.
Yeah “code is debt” seems to be popular meme among the “thought leaders” these days. Somehow their baroque processes (eg scrum), nonsense okrs and out of touch roadmaps are never debt - curious, right?
If we are trying to deliver fast by expediting software development and taking shortcuts (technical debt), another department can also do something similar (quick, our HR process is slow and cumbersome, implement that HR system) - which would solve the particular issues for the business at that particular point in time, but may not the needs of the business later on.
For software, the issue is that we believe we can introduce technical debts, that is, it is permissible to introduce and talk about technical debts. We wouldn't necessarily talk about implementing a new HR system often.
We think writing a line of code is fast (and define what "fast" means) but it isn't.