Measure and improve developer productivity: a complete guide

Consider measuring the number of automated processes implemented in a given period. If you use the wrong measure of productivity, you could be doing more harm than good. These metrics are easy to game and don’t provide actionable insights for teams to improve the product development process. Employees who are content with your company are more likely to work passionately and show eagerness to improve. Plus, you need to hire professional developers ready for leadership roles in your company. Such developers perform better and motivate the entire development team to be more productive.

how to measure developer

Many engineering managers overlook this consideration when they choose metrics to measure productivity—the type of work the developers are doing. Agile project management already has some level of prioritization baked in, but it doesn’t mean team members don’t face competing tasks every day. Individual developers and engineering managers can use the Eisenhower Box to make sure they focus on the most important tasks.

This enables you to move the code into the main vein faster than you could writing larger chunks of code changes. I’ve given a lot of thought to how dev teams measure velocity, and it’s clear to me that we need a better way. To that end, I started experimenting with new definitions of velocity — something that would make more sense to me and dev teams in general. As soon as you hire a new developer, you go back to the storming and norming stages of team development, and your previous view of team velocity goes down the drain. Story points are just too subjective to give you a clear directional picture.

After the developer finishes working on a project for our client, we reach out to other IT experts who were on the team and ask how they felt while working with a specific person. What do they think about the specific developer’s skills and engagement? This is the best way to receive information that often can’t be reflected in numbers but which we believe are as important. These dashboards enable you to access information on metrics quickly so team leads can take proactive steps.

So to fix this mishap, you’ll need to add more of the developer to thin out the consistency and get a better application. Look for issues in code changes to identify if the code has spikes and investigate which tasks caused the spikes. The velocity can be calculated differently once multiple tasks are added or removed from the calculation. Again, I want to sincerely thank all of the folks who have done — and generously shared — amazing work in this space.

Developers are the powerhouses and necessary backbones of technology and software companies. Their technical skills and abilities allow businesses to create products to sell to customers; without them, organizations may not be able to fulfill their revenue goals successfully. Since they’re so crucial, it’s essential to provide developers with the best experience possible so they can stay motivated, focused, and most importantly, so teams can retain them. A solid software development team is a crucial part of every business, whether healthcare, teaching, or technology. They work in teams and collaborate with other programmers, coders, and engineers to design, develop, and deploy programs in different business aspects. Like other business aspects, measuring software developer productivity is also crucial.

How to Improve Developer Productivity

While granular, multi-touch attribution is challenging to track in many types of Developer Relations activities, understanding the developer story lends depth and context to the value of DevRel. Make sure you keep this in mind when communicating how you measure Developer Relations. The Keystone DevRel Metrics framework assumes that your DevRel team already tracks many different KPIs, which should now be categorized appropriately.

  • This means considering the quality and innovative effort involved in the software development process.
  • Tens of thousands of words have been written on the impossibility of measuring developer productivity using quantitative means (i.e., using numbers rather than subjective judgment).
  • Another great idea is to use measuring cups before mixing the hair color and the developer.
  • The best metrics for measuring productivity are likely to change depending on the type of work developers are doing, the nature of the project, and the development phases.

Online communication tools help team members talk to each other individually or in a group, irrespective of where they are. These tools help developers and other stakeholders to plan and manage projects and to ensure the team achieves the project goals within the defined time. It also enables developers and other team members to collaborate effectively and track real-time progress. Top project management tools include Jira, Asana, Trello, and Kissflow. Software developers write hundreds or thousands of code lines for a project, and maintaining quality is challenging. If they have to rework multiple times, it affects their productivity and increases the project delivery time.

The credibility pillar refers to whether your developers trust the product and its benefits. The best metrics for measuring productivity are likely to change depending on the type of work developers are doing, the nature of the project, and the development phases. Measuring developer productivity typically boils down to tracking the work completed and the quality or importance of the task accomplished. By combining these two criteria, you can ensure that your team produces meaningful results.

But I do see it as a more objective way to measure velocity compared to subjectively assigning story points to a task. So while you can’t predict future sprints when using my approach to measure velocity, you’re not missing out on anything. I’d argue that you never really had a way to predict sprints anyway, so you’re not losing anything by trying to create more capacity and effectiveness for your developers.

Why Is Developer Productivity Important?

A company must differentiate between the right and wrong ways to measure developer productivity and make the most of their effort. Developer velocity is a technique used to improve business performance by empowering your software engineering teams through an enabling environment so they can be more productive. This also entails giving developers the right set of tools to allow them to reach The Digital Marketers Career Path: 3 Jobs + Salary their full potential as developers. At some point in their careers, all engineering managers, leads, and CTOs have wondered how to measure and improve developer productivity. This is because developer productivity plays a role in the software delivery pipeline, which drives business performance. Without this KPI, it is almost impossible to carry out life cycles and test a digital product.

how to measure developer

If the answer is yes, it might be a really good keystone metric to use with this framework. In this framework for how to measure Developer Relations, the keystone metric is the metric by which we assign value to most of what Developer Relations does. Upon encountering an interesting product, a developer goes through many touchpoints — and each adds value until we get to a consequential outcome, or series of outcomes. We really like to measure disparate points in the developer journey, but the complete picture is incredibly important.

People who overwork may suffer burnout and clock negative productivity, characterized by an increase in errors and oversight. Now you know what needs to be done, you can ensure that your team is spending their time most effectively on work items that will move the needle. I would always recommend buying more than enough of each product from the very beginning just to be safe. If you aren’t sure if you have enough, buy an extra box or kit just to be safe. You can always return the unused product if you end up not needing it. But if you don’t have a scale at home, a plastic measuring cup is also a great alternative.

Timetracker

Velocity tells you how much “delivered value” your software developers accomplished. “Delivered value is typically described as the number of features completed within a period that are ready to ship or ready to test,” adds one developer blog. Again, you should calculate the percentage using logic regarding your specific keystone metric. However, a registration is easier to acquire than a Monthly Active User, so make sure to adjust your percentage accordingly. And some companies don’t index on registrations, but instead focus on things like open source contributors, downloads, etc. Another crucial topic in measuring Developer Relations is scalability.

how to measure developer

Yes, for as long as you do it with the utmost care and know what you’re dealing with. While professional coloring techniques like balayage, ombré, and lowlights are best left to the experts, you can refresh your hair with new color without going to the salon. The following blog was written in collaboration with the DevOps experts at GitProtect.io. Technical debt is not bad if your team is ideating solutions and needs to test as many ideas as possible.

In both cases it is the final piece placed during construction and locks all the stones into position, allowing the arch or vault to bear weight” . A well-defined “keystone” metric is crucially important to the construction of the Keystone DevRel Metrics framework. The answer may be to use both subjective and quantitative measures together and make judgments based on both inputs.

Even if these two terms are often used interchangeably, by setting a specific metric, you can foresee upcoming performance. Maybe you decided that workshop participation was worth five registrations. Is that really plausible if workshop attendees only sign up for one account in order to participate? Is it logical to assume that an average of one out of every two people who listened to a talk then signs up? Once you have the groundwork laid to measure the value of Developer Relations, compare your numbers to the overall company numbers.

Implement a tool to stay on top of developer experience

Engagement can happen whether or not developer audiences have previous Reach or Awareness touchpoints. I recommend that your keystone metric correlate with one engagement unit. This makes measuring Developer Relations easier than translating the keystone metric through percentages or guesswork across all categories. What we ultimately want to get to is not simply the number of actual units of the keystone metric. We want to measure Developer Relations in value to the business — which is potential revenue. Have you then struggled to answer because DevRel does measure this, but alone, it doesn’t even come close to quantifying everything DevRel does?

But a 30 Volume developer works best if you want a lighter and deeper color. A 40 Volume developer can lift your hair into 4 shades, and is best for drastic color transformations. Hair dyes can also stain the skin, so apply lip balm or Vaseline along What should I learn before learning coding by Arnav Gupta Coding Blocks your hairline, ears, and neck before coloring your hair. Also, wear your disposable or latex gloves, and keep your workspace well ventilated to avoid inhaling the fumes. The mixture will be too runny for application, and more challenging to work on.

Productivity answers the question of how much “positive work” has been done by the developer. Microsoft created a Developer Velocity Assessment tool to calculate a team’s developer velocity index . The DVI score is calculated by reviewing the internal Manipulating the DOM in JavaScript with innerText and innerHTML process in four areas—tools, culture, product management, and talent management—that have positively impacted productivity. Besides the business goals, developer productivity also helps you determine how to increase your developers’ velocity.

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