> including tech debt

Tech Debt is not little, or we wouldn't carry it around, rather than devote time (and risk of revealing new unknowns) to fixing it. My agile experience has always favored conquering little stuff first, since ppl recognize stories more than points (which vary in value, over time). This, unfortunately, sometimes leads to the hilariously subversive act of splitting a story up into as many tiny pieces as possible so that some people may inflate that "What have you done for me lately" list while more tangible coding is done by others.