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Discussion on: How do you measure productivity?

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programmerbyday profile image
Arman @programmerByDay • Edited

productivity is usually measured by "the amount of work gets done in a period of time". However that should not be used as a reward/punish system for people, because if so, people would start finding ways to increase that number or keep it high.
I believe that number should only be a discussion subject.

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maximwheatley profile image
Maxim Wheatley

This is a really interesting point, something this makes me think of is how productivity is also somewhat context dependent on what's going on in the workflow.

Certainly it's a paradox that if you define or measure something incorrectly you can encourage people to pursue things that inappropriately game those measures or goals!

Have you felt like any measures you've seen are particularly problematic? Very curious!

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programmerbyday profile image
Arman @programmerByDay

Yes, a lot throughout my career.
An example would be "Velocity" metric in agile software development teams. That number shows on average how much work gets done by that team in a sprint.
It is fine to use that number as a guideline for business estimations, but developers shouldn't care about that number. devs should only care about the product they are building and achieving the sprint goal.

developers should care about other numbers and metrics.

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nikitakoselev profile image
Nikita Koselev

Amount of products and services, which were created or saved in a period of time. Might be easier to measure, when it is translated to $