How do you explain refactoring to a non-technical person?
- by Benjol
(This question was inspired by the most-voted answer here)
How do you go about explaining refactoring (and technical debt) to a non-technical person (typically a PHB or customer)? ("What, it's going to cost me a month of your work with no visible difference?!")
UPDATE Thanks for all the answers so far, I think this list will provide several useful analogies to which we can point the appropriate people (though editing out references to PHBs may be wise!)