Teams talk about debt as if it were taste. Steering experiences it as a date that will not move, a release that cannot be tested, or an integration that nobody will touch in a freeze.
The lesson is to put debt on the same RAID the program already claims to run. Name the change it blocks. Name the test it prevents. Name the residual risk if it is deferred again. Then it can be traded against scope like any other constraint.
Unowned debt is not a backlog hygiene problem. It is an undocumented operating risk.