Measuring the Impact of Technical Debt on Development Effort in Software Projects

TL;DR

This paper empirically investigates how technical debt affects development effort in software projects, highlighting the importance of managing debt to reduce future costs and improve productivity.

Contribution

It introduces a framework for measuring technical debt's impact on work effort, based on empirical data from open-source and enterprise projects.

Findings

Technical debt correlates with increased development effort

Delaying debt repayment leads to higher long-term costs

Managing technical debt can improve project productivity

Abstract

Technical debt refers to the trade-offs between code quality and faster delivery, impacting future development with increased complexity, bugs, and costs. This study empirically analyzes the additional work effort caused by technical debt in software projects, focusing on feature implementations. I explore how delaying technical debt repayment through refactoring influences long-term work effort. Using data from open-source and enterprise projects, I correlate technical debt with practical work effort, drawing from issue trackers and version control systems. Our goal is to provide a framework for managing technical debt, aiding developers, project managers, and stakeholders in understanding and mitigating its impact on productivity and costs.