Leo Martins
Cloud architect
Maintenance is easy to postpone because its success looks like nothing happened. The queue stays quiet, the dependency update does not make a headline, and the runbook only matters at the exact moment nobody wants to write one.
In 2023, we started reserving a visible slice of every planning cycle for maintenance. The result was not a perfect backlog. It was a team that could explain the cost of keeping the product dependable before the cost became urgent.
Trust is built from the parts of the product that are boring to discuss and expensive to ignore. Give those parts a budget, an owner, and a place in the roadmap.
“Reliability is a product capability, not a housekeeping task.”
Discussion (14 Replies)
Sara Ahmed
Design Technologist
The idea of making the review ritual small enough to repeat is the part I am taking away. Security guidance is only useful when it survives a busy development sprint.
Leo Martins
Cloud Architect
Would love to see the threat-model template you used. We have been trying to keep it close to the pull request without making the PR unreadable.
Ayesha Khan
Product Engineer
The key is to record the architectural decision and the residual risk clearly, rather than producing a 30-page static specification.