01/09/2026
There's a version of this story in almost every business we walk into. A job that used to take a week now takes three. A small change breaks something unrelated. The release needs the one person who happens to be on leave. Nobody can explain it in a sentence, so it goes down as "things are busy".
That's technical debt, and it has a price. 62% of developers told Stack Overflow it's the biggest frustration of their week. CIOs, asked by McKinsey, reckon it's worth 20-40% of their entire technology estate.
Four things that genuinely help:
· Track how much of each month goes to unplanned work. That number is your interest rate.
· Fix the debt standing in front of your next project, not the ugliest debt.
· Make maintenance a standing 10-20% of every cycle, not a cleanup project. Projects get cancelled when things get busy, and busy is when debt piles up fastest.
· Keep a calendar of end-of-support dates. Windows 10 support ended on 14 October 2025, and plenty of businesses found out the hard way.
What's the system in your business that everyone tiptoes around?
The full read is on our site, including why we usually talk clients out of a rewrite: https://devpanda.co.nz/insights/technical-debt-cost-2026?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=insight_technical_debt_cost_2026&utm_content=facebook_post_checklist&utm_term=tech-debt