Burdened with technical debt

Incurring intentional technical debt should be a business-based decision. This doesn't mean that business people need to be involved, but every time you make the decision to take the quick and dirty approach versus doing the right thing, there should be a solid reason behind it. That solid reason should be: this is better for the business. I know this sounds like something out of Office Space, but every time you copy and paste code, every time you don't refactor, every time you violate a naming convention, every time you choose to leave a defect in the product, every time you write code without a test case, you should be doing it because it makes good business sense. At the end of the day, the software we write serves the business and is supposed to add to the bottom line.