Google recently faced this challenge at scale – a substantial percentage of its engineers reported being blocked by “unnecessary complexity and technical debt” in internal surveys. In a paper titled “Defining, Measuring, and Managing Technical Debt,” Google Engineers Ciera Jaspan and Collin Green systematically understood this concept that slows down even the most talented engineering teams.
They tried to answer the following questions: How do you measure something so intangible? And once you identify it, how do you manage it without halting new development?
This research matters because technical debt is often blamed for productivity issues, but rarely defined or measured with precision. Google's work offers concrete strategies that any engineering organization can adopt.