SCRUM is not our saviour
higginsninja.net
higginsninja.net
It is great if you can adopt ideal agile/scrum practices, but as the article alludes that doesn't always work for people. Retrospectives are a way for the team to reflect on their current process, on what works and what doesn't and to continually make the changes they need in order to be productive and successful.
Also, another side note. I have worked for organizations that both allow padding space in velocity for technical debt and those that constrict it. It works much better when the organization (I am thinking mostly managers, product, non-dev) know and agree up front to a set amount of time each sprint being spent on technical debt.
I mean to speak more to the situations where you have non technical management, or at least those that don't understand the repercussions of bad technical decisions.
In those situations, you need to take it on yourself to make sure you're handling the technical balancing act yourself.