Topics
Latest
AI
Amazon
Image Credits:Macrostore / Getty Images
Apps
Biotech & Health
mood
Image Credits:Macrostore / Getty Images
Cloud Computing
Commerce
Crypto
Image Credits:Atlassian
Enterprise
EVs
Fintech
Fundraising
Gadgets
Gaming
Government & Policy
Hardware
Layoffs
Media & Entertainment
Meta
Microsoft
Privacy
Robotics
security measures
Social
Space
Startups
TikTok
Transportation
speculation
More from TechCrunch
Events
Startup Battlefield
StrictlyVC
Podcasts
Videos
Partner Content
TechCrunch Brand Studio
Crunchboard
reach Us
There ’s an unhealthy compulsion with society calculate for a way to measure developer productivity .
Over the last 20 old age , I ’ve led multidisciplinary technology team across some of Australia ’s great initiative . Most lately , I led the development of an interior development platform , supporting the experience of over 7,000 engineers as an executive manager at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia . Today , I lead the DevOps Evangelism team at Atlassian , where I on a regular basis meet with Fortune 500 troupe , go the world sharing insights and guidance on optimize for high up - performing and engaged software team and leadership .
In my conversations with senior leaders , I ’ve come to interpret the desire to measure productivity . Senior leader are under air pressure to surrender answer while capitalize on their investing in team and engineering science . There are no threatening aim behind measuring developer productivity ; leaders authentically need their team to be as generative as possible . The job is that developer productiveness is fantastically unmanageable to measure , result in organizations allocating disproportionate effort and resources while endeavor to witness the magic measure . This investment in mensuration takes cherished meter away from initiatives that could help developer be more productive .
Imagine the hypothesis if the same amount of time and energy was clothe in meliorate developer productivity rather than adjudicate to measure it .
Fact: Happy developers are productive developers
Happy employee are rich employees may seem like an obvious statement , but this gets fall behind in the developer productivity discourse .
Think back to any richly - execute developer you ’ve worked with ; chances are they ’ve gone above and beyond what was officially have a bun in the oven of them . This developer was likely extremely affiance , had everything they needed to do at their best , and in general love their work .
The behaviors associated with employee who “ exceed expectations ” are known as have organizational citizenship behavior ( OCB ) and are drive by job expiation . yard of pedantic research paper back the notion that satisfied employees are fat employees — software developers are no exception .
Join us at TechCrunch Sessions: AI
Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI
So , if slaked developer are productive developer , developer productivity is a by - product of developer pleasure .
Inputs to developer joy
There are two main inputs to developer joy : developer experience and applied science culture .
you may think of developer experience ( DX ) as how developer sense about the dick and framework they use to build up package . DX is to a great extent determine by the timbre of tooling and efficiency of processes used by developer to create software within an organization .
Developer experience refers to how engineers emotionally plug into with their work , while technology culture embrace how workplace is done within an organization . It ’s a spinal fusion of an engineering organization ’s values , practices , and norm . Leadership flair , fellowship mission and visual modality , team anatomical structure , decision - making outgrowth , and the overall work environment hard work civilization .
leading can influence refinement but want to be molded and develop over time . On the other hired hand , organizations have lineal ascendency over the experience of developer within their fellowship . Intentionally ameliorate developer experience significantly touch developer joy and , therefore , leads to improvement in productiveness .
Steps to intentionally improve developer experience
by design improving developer experience is the most potent path to improve developer productivity within an organization . Every organization has different challenges and needs to go on its own journeying , but three common steps can turbocharge progress .
Step 1: Understand the current experience
Developer experience is how railroad engineer feel about the tool they use to create software package within their organization . The only people who know what the developer experience is like at a company are the developer , so the first step should be to get their perspective .
I once spent two full weeks asking developer one simple question : “ How can we improve the way we give birth computer software ? ”
I walked away from two weeks of conversations with a two - twelvemonth reserve of thing we could do to meliorate the developer experience and , as a by - product , improve productiveness . If you involve developers how to ameliorate their experience , they will decidedly tell you . This is free , requires no cooking other than memorizing a single question , and you could depart today .
Speaking to developers is a important first step , but it ’s not scalable across a large administration .
Developer experience surveys are a great way to get a pulse check on developer experience at shell . you’re able to habituate the information gathered in DX survey to track improvements in specific centering field and identify unexampled focal point areas .
Step 2: Empower a platform team
Platform team are an internal group focusing on provide a capital developer experience . political program teams provideinternal servicesto software deliverance teams , enable them to self - serve and work autonomously . These services might include infrastructure , CI / CD , monitoring and logging putz , or make it easy to understand and abide by with company standards and drill .
Remember that DX is about how developer feel about the tools and frameworks they use to deliver software .
Centralizing these tools and model under a program team means one grouping is responsible for these within an organization . Logically , enabling a electropositive developer experience should be the primary goal for a platform squad .
Step 3: Drive DX at scale with a developer experience platform
Platform squad use weapons platform as a vehicle to deliver an excellent experience for their customers — the developers . A good developer experience platform does this in three ways :
Thoughts on measuring developer productivity
A lot of people misquote Peter Drucker ’s “ You ca n’t amend what you do n’t measure ” when it follow to developer productivity and habituate this as a justification to measure the wrong things in the untimely way .
Developer experience and engineering cultivation are the two remark to developer joy , which leave in developer productivity . These two inputs are unparalleled to every organization and ca n’t be duplicate ; given their immense impact on developer productivity , what you choose to measure should also be singular to your organization . Copying metrics from another company is unlikely to influence for your company and will in all probability make things worse .
This does n’t mean you require to start from start ; some troupe are doing this well . Rather than copying their metric , you should take inspiration from their journeying to find suitable measures for their organisation . Learn about the unconscious process they went through to incur appropriate measures and pursue similar steps . It will be a journey well deserving the time and feat .
Developer experience for the win
Improving developer experience within an arrangement leads to quenched , more productive developers .
Companies that work toward improving developer experience and applied science culture will have productive developers and will outgo their competitors .
Other companies will still be looking for ways to appraise developer productiveness .
I have it away which character of companionship I would choose to work for .
