2/2/24, 1:36 PM The Annual Cost of Technical Debt: $1.

52 Trillion | by Itza Reyes | Medium

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The Annual Cost of Technical Debt: $1.52

Trillion
Itza Reyes · Follow
4 min read · Jun 27, 2023

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In case you need any more reasons to prioritize software quality, let me share with
you that the cost of poor software quality in the US has risen to at least $2.41 trillion
annually, while the accumulated technical debt of software has grown to
approximately $1.52 trillion.

This is demonstrated by a study conducted in 2022 and set to be updated in 2024 by

the Consortium for Information & Software Quality (CISQ).

While the report focuses on the cost of poor software quality (CPSQ), providing
analysis, data, and solutions for areas such as cybercrime and the software supply
chain with open-source software (OSS), this article will specifically delve into the
topic of technical debt.

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2/2/24, 1:36 PM The Annual Cost of Technical Debt: $1.52 Trillion | by Itza Reyes | Medium

CPSQ 2022

📈 Why does technical debt arise?

A significant portion of the current technical debt that exists today was created
through “quick and dirty” development techniques (e.g., agile without software
engineering discipline).

Technical debt accumulates when decision-makers opt for a short-term solution to a

software development problem rather than a more comprehensive long-term
solution. This initially hides substantial costs that organizations must later pay.

Increase in technical debt

There are various types of technical debt, including requirements, architecture,

code, testing, and operational processes. Technical debt can be injected at any stage

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2/2/24, 1:36 PM The Annual Cost of Technical Debt: $1.52 Trillion | by Itza Reyes | Medium

of software development, spreading to other phases and parts of the system and
causing various issues.

Types of Technical Debt

💰 The Costs
There are two essential components to the costs of technical debt.

The principal refers to the cost of refactoring/modifying software artifacts to

achieve the desired level of maintainability and evolvability.

The interest is the additional effort developers will dedicate to making those
changes due to the existence of the technical debt, which accumulates over time
as the software becomes more fragile. Every minute spent on less-than-ideal
code adds interest to the debt.

📏 Measurement in Software
One of the main challenges when dealing with technical debt has been the lack of a
way to measure it. To help overcome that problem, CISQ/OMG led the development
of an Automated Technical Debt (ATD) measurement standard, which is currently
being updated with a new version expected in 2023.

The ATD standard estimates the effort required to address all instances of software
weaknesses included in the ISO/IEC 5055:2021 standard for automated source code
quality measures that remain in the code of a software application at the time of
release.

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2/2/24, 1:36 PM The Annual Cost of Technical Debt: $1.52 Trillion | by Itza Reyes | Medium

This estimation can be used to predict future corrective maintenance costs and is
calculated using static analysis tools.

The measure expresses the cost of software quality in terms that a company can
understand by estimating the future costs of corrective maintenance to remedy
structural defects in the code.

👀 Recommendations for Addressing It

Throughout the report, several recommendations are made, and at the end, they
provide a more specific list of recommendations to avoid poor quality in software
development, including technical debt.

Use software quality standards, related metrics, and emerging tools.

Analyze and evaluate the quality of all OSS/third-party components that will be
included in any system. Monitor them closely in operation. Apply patches in a
timely manner.

Avoid DevOps and CI/CD models that do not include best practices and tools for
continuous quality engineering.

Integrate continuous technical debt remediation into the software development

life cycle.

Invest in the professionalism, knowledge, and tools of your software engineers.

Consider the possibility of developers certifying their knowledge of critical code

and architectural weaknesses in ISO/IEC 5055 (still in progress).

🌟 Conclusions
The growing impact of technical debt has become the biggest obstacle to making
changes in existing code bases.

There are many ways to achieve better software quality, but they all start with a
well-conceived measurement program fully supported by top management.

The potential of managing technical debt is evident in Stepsize’s research, which

revealed that organizations actively managing technical debt will release at least
50% faster.

And as we have seen in the CPSQ, preventing or early elimination of technical debt
is the most cost-effective long-term strategy.
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 🔗 Sources
2/2/24, 1:36 PM The Annual Cost of Technical Debt: $1.52 Trillion | by Itza Reyes | Medium

https://www.it-cisq.org/the-cost-of-poor-quality-software-in-the-us-a-2022-report/

https://www.theee.ai/2021/01/06/6838-poor-software-quality-cost-the-usd-2-08-tn-in-
2020/

Stay tuned for more articles on tackling technical debt. I’ll be sharing insights on
how to address this challenge. Keep an eye out for my future posts! 🚀

Thank you very much for reading. If you have any comments, suggestions, or ideas, I’ll be
happy to read and collaborate to grow together. ❤️
www.itzareyes.mx

Software Development Technical Debt

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Written by Itza Reyes

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Me encanta trabajar con personas, resolver problemas y crear software asombroso. | Tech Lead @Creditas |
https://www.itzareyes.mx/

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