To effectively manage Technical Debt (TD), we need reliable means to quantify it. We conducted a Systematic Mapping Study (SMS) where we identified TD quantification approaches that focus on different aspects of TD. Some approaches base the quantification on the identification of smells, some quantify the Return on Investment (ROI) of refactoring, some compare an ideal state with the current state of a software in terms of the software quality, and some compare alternative development paths to reduce TD. It is unclear if these approaches are quantifying the same thing and if they support similar or different decisions regarding TD Management (TDM). This creates the problem of not being able to effectively compare and evaluate approaches. To solve this problem, we developed a novel conceptual model, the Technical Debt Quantification Model (TDQM), that captures the important concepts related to TD quantification and illustrates the relationships between them. TDQM can represent varied TD quantification approaches via a common uniform representation, the TDQM Approach Comparison Matrix, that allows performing useful comparisons and evaluations between approaches. This paper reports on the mapping study, the development of TDQM, and on applying TDQM to compare and evaluate TD quantification approaches.

翻译：为有效管理技术债务（TD），我们需要可靠的量化手段。我们开展了一项系统映射研究（SMS），识别出针对技术债务不同方面的量化方法。部分方法基于代码异味识别进行量化，部分测算重构的投资回报率（ROI），部分从软件质量角度比较理想状态与当前状态，还有部分通过比较不同开发路径以减少技术债务。目前尚不清楚这些方法是否量化了同一对象，以及它们对技术债务管理（TDM）的决策支持是否相似或不同。这导致难以有效比较和评估各类方法。为解决该问题，我们提出了一个新颖的概念模型——技术债务量化模型（TDQM），该模型捕捉了与技术债务量化相关的重要概念，并阐释了它们之间的关系。通过统一的通用表示形式“TDQM方法比较矩阵”，TDQM能够表征不同的技术债务量化方法，从而实现对方法间进行有效的比较与评估。本文报告了系统映射研究过程、TDQM的构建过程，以及应用TDQM比较和评估技术债务量化方法的实践结果。