Opinion: To avoid technical debt, you need technical people in your team who can call spade a spade

Technical Debt is a major issue in almost all IT firms and solving it isn't an exact or straight-forward science yet.

Some say you should focus on coding rules and linting for more readability so that code smell is kept to a minimum. But that isn't the only worry. In many cases, its the developer's incorrect understanding of the business logic which is problematic. In others, its an issue of problematic communication or coordination which causes the incorrect understanding which in turn results in substandard code which has nothing to do with the developer's coding skills.

To fully solve the technical debt problem, you must first understand what's causing it in your organisation in the first place.  There are also some industry standard best practices such as Agile, TDD, BDD, Scrum, etc which can help you with streamlining your overall project management so that the pitfalls may be avoided.

Another question you should often be asking yourself is whether your technical debt is related to personnel debt. Maybe you've hired the wrong person for the job or the right person but with inadequate experience or skills? Maybe that is causing the technical debt?

Ensuring these bottlenecks are constantly removed from a project is the job of a project manager or coordinator, the technical debt remains to a minimum if that job is done properly.

Now, coming to the title of the post, all project members should be technical in the sense that they are able to perform some function or activity directly related to the project such as coding, testing, designing, etc. Only one role is typically reserved for a non technical which is that of project manager or coordinator or supervisor, though in the ideal case, this person should also be an experienced technologist who has worked on that or similar projects earlier.