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Technical Debt Quantification

Technical Debt Quantification is the measurement and monetization of technical shortcuts taken during development (incomplete refactoring, outdated dependencies, deferred testing). Coined by Cunningham in 1992, the metaphor frames accumulated shortcuts as financial debt: taking shortcuts saves immediate time but incurs interest (slower future development) and risk (outages).

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Sources

  1. Cunningham, W. (1992). The WyCash portfolio management system. OOPSLA '92 Experience Report. link ↗
  2. Seaman, C. B., & Guo, Y. (2011). Measuring and monitoring technical debt. Advances in Computers, 82, 25–46. DOI: 10.1016/B978-0-12-385512-1.00002-5 ↗
  3. Tom, E., Aurum, A., & Vidgen, R. (2013). An exploration of technical debt. Journal of Systems and Software, 86(6), 1498–1516. DOI: 10.1016/j.jss.2012.12.052 ↗

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ScholarGate — Technical Debt Quantification (Technical Debt Quantification and Assessment). Retrieved 2026-06-04 from https://scholargate.app/en/numerical-methods/technical-debt-quantification