What is Developer Productivity?
Developer productivity is the team’s ability to work efficiently and produce results. Understanding how the dev teams work will help engineering managers work toward effectively improving their team’s performance. Companies like Google revolutionized developer productivity by formulating a data-driven approach to boost developer productivity.
While the idea of developer productivity sounds fairly typical, it’s not that simple. Depending on factors such as workflow, team structure, and development environment, the metrics can vary widely across companies.
Metrics for Developer Productivity
Every company has a specific set of metrics for quantifying developer productivity. These metrics also account for factors that may be inhibiting their efforts to produce optimal results. While there is no one-size-fits-all standard, we have compiled a list of metrics that you can utilize to craft a standard for your dev team.
Track Time
One of the metrics in assessing developer productivity is tracking the time spent working on various tasks. Keeping a record of how much work is done in a set time helps in identifying the time required for specific tasks. Developer velocity is directly proportional to developer productivity and is thus a strong indicator of how far along the software developers are in the process.
Performance Comparison
Another metric involves comparing developers’ current performance against their previous performances. Software development is a long process lasting months on end. By crafting a performance comparison chart, engineering managers can identify exactly what changed to produce different results — or vice versa, what remained constant and improved results.
The Right Set of Tasks Completed
The developer team works on a long list of tasks — from reviewing code to identifying blockers, alongside juggling countless other tasks daily. However, if the dev team is not prioritizing the right set of tasks, their efforts may be leading to a dead end. As an engineering manager, you need to ensure that your team has their priority list set for the right tasks.
Top Six Tips and Tricks to Boost Developer Productivity
The internet is filled with bogus advice on ways to improve developer productivity, so it’s essential to scour through the dirt and find the real gems. After a thorough and careful exploration of the methods for improving developer productivity, we have garnered the top six tips and tricks to boost developer productivity:
Skillful Synergy: Matching Skills with Projects
Right Tools in the Right Environment
Address Gaps in Knowledge
Reduce Distractions
Efficient Feedback Cycles
Team Collaboration
Skillful Synergy: Matching Skills with Projects
All developers have their own unique set of skills. An important step in improving developer productivity is to ensure that the developers are assigned projects according to their skills. When the goal is to just get work done, tasks are assigned without much consideration given to the developers’ individual skills. The result is that the project starts to lag behind schedule. Especially when onboarding new hires, engineering managers must carefully assess developers’ skills according to what needs to be done.
Right Tools in the Right Environment
Coding is laborious. There are a lot of technicalities and complexities involved in the development process. Factors like suboptimal work environments and bug-ridden code with no proper sets of tools with which to work tend to overshadow developer productivity. So, it’s important to equip developers with the right tools and resources to move forward efficiently.
Address Gaps in Knowledge
Sometimes developers are unable to figure out how to complete tasks due to the gaps in knowledge. While there are countless ways to fill these gaps, it is incumbent upon engineering managers to provide a work environment free from stress and anxiety, and to instead provide a large stack of tools for developers to choose from, so that they can ease off the workload.
Reduce Distractions
Another factor that drastically impacts developer productivity is distractions. It comes as a no-brainer that a process as extensive as coding would require a workspace free from all sorts of disruptions, helping developers retain their focus for longer periods.
Efficient Feedback Cycles
Productivity flows with positive feedback. Developers seek acknowledgement for their work and it’s better if it happens at every step of the way. When developers know that their contributions are valued in the product development process, their creativity and innovation are likely to flow more effortlessly. Consequently, developers become more productive.
Team Collaboration
The goal of every team member is the ultimate success of the product. It’s important that team members establish a connection among themselves to foster a healthy engineering team culture, ensuring that every single individual feels like a part of the team. Only when the whole team is working together toward the common goal of efficiency, effectiveness, and productivity, can the sum of their work be greater than their individual parts. Leadership expert Simon Sinek emphasizes this idea:
“It’s better to have a great team than to have a team of greats.”
Conclusion
Developer productivity drives success for any software-driven business. As a crucial cornerstone of high-quality results, improving developer productivity is the way to navigate through this ever-evolving landscape of tech. With the help of our carefully curated collection, you can ensure, as an engineering manager, that your dev team flourishes with productivity.
For customizable skill enhancement paths for more professional development, take a look at the courses we offer at DevPath.Tips and Tricks for Achieving Developer Productivity
Free Resources
