The document explores software developer productivity, highlighting the factors that influence developers' perceptions of productivity and the activities they engage in throughout their workday. It discusses survey findings showing developers' preferences for measuring productivity and the impact of context switches on their workflow. Recommendations for improving productivity include minimizing interruptions, effectively organizing work, and leveraging automated tools for time tracking.

1. Gail C. Murphy
Tasktop Technologies
Univ. of British Columbia
@gail_murphy @tasktop
Software Developer Productivity:
What we Know and How to Make it Better

2. Outline
Observation
Perspective
Activity
G

3. © Tasktop 2016
Ways Forward

4. Perspective

5. © Tasktop 2016
Perspective
When do developers perceive themselves to be
productive and unproductive?
Thomas Fritz
U. Zürich
André Meyer
U. Zürich
Tom Zimmermann
Microsoft
Research
Joint work [FSE 2014] with:

6. SurveyPerspective
28 questions
379 responses
93% developers
9.2 avg years of
experience

7. 53%
complete tasks
or goals
50%
have no/few
interruptions or
distractions
22%
have no meetings
20%
have clear goals
I have a productive day when I…Perspective

8. Perspective
Productive and Unproductive Activities
0
20
40
60
80
Coding Meetings Planning Doc
0
15
30
45
60
75
Meetings Email Unplanned Coding
Productive Unproductive

9. # Work Items
Time on Work Items
Time on Code Reviews
Time Writing Code
# Code Reviews
# Code Elements Changed
# Lines of Code Changed
# Emails Written
Perspective
Measuring Productivity

10. Take-awayPerspective
Developers want to measure productivity;
each developer wants to measure differently.
27%
Activities
18%
Achievements
17%
Value
16%
Time per task ratio

11. Observation

12. © Tasktop 2016
Observation
Survey left us with many questions.
What are tasks? What are context switches?
What kind of email is processed? …
Thomas Fritz
U. Zürich
André Meyer
U. Zürich
Tom Zimmermann
Microsoft
Research
Joint work [FSE 2014] with:

13. Observation

14. Theme 1: TasksObservation
4 (±2.3) tasks per 4 hours
13.3 (±8.5) task switches per hour
6.2 (±3.3) min spent each time on task
tasks ≠ work items

15. 47 (± 19.8) activities per hour
1.6 (± .8) min spent on each activity
14.8 (± 3.9) programs over 4 hours
Theme 2: ActivitiesObservation

16. Code 33%
Debug 4%
VC 2%
Test App 12%
Review 2%
DevOther 4%
Activities (Development)Observation

17. Email 5%
Planning 8%
Doc 3%
Meet Planned 5%
Meet Informal 13%
Browsing 4%
Activities (Other)Observation

18. Context switches lower productivity
What is a context switch?
Theme 3: Work FlowObservation

19. A context switch is when:
“When I have to stop thinking about one thing and start
thinking about something else”
Theme 3: Work FlowObservation

20. The longer the switch the more expensive…
“[To] stop and work on a different task is a more
costly context switch that writing a quick email”
The more focused on a task the more expensive…
“Depends on where I was, if it was a critical section, it is
really hard to get back to focus on that task, even if it was for
like 30 seconds”
Theme 3: Work FlowObservation

21. Mitigate context switches (e.g., close email, schedule a meeting
with yourself, work elsewhere)
Need for automatic recognition of context switches
Take-awayObservation

22. Activity

23. Thomas Fritz
U. Zürich
André Meyer
U. Zürich
Tom Zimmermann
Microsoft
Research
Joint work with:
Laura Barton
UBC
But what do developers really do all day…
and when do they think they are productive?
Activity

24. Activity
Monitoring Study

25. Code 21%
Debug .4%
VC .7%
Test App
Review 1%
DevOther
ActivitiesActivity

26. Email 14%
Planning 5%
Doc 7%
Meet Planned 6%
Meet Informal 3%
Browsing 11%
Activities (Other)Activity

27. Productive PeriodsActivity

28. Development work is highly fragmented
(.3 to 2 min per activity)
Developers perceived productivity follows habitual patterns
Some early take-awaysActivity

29. Activity

30. Individual
Team & Organization
Ways Forward

31. Set goals
Organize workday to minimize interruptions
Manage distractions
IndividualWays Forward

32. Teams & Organization
Learn and use effective meeting practices
Use toolchains that support context and flow
Ways Forward

33. © Tasktop 2016
Access your task tracker
from your IDE
Know where your time
goes with automated
time tracking
See only the
interesting code
Ways Forward

34. © Tasktop 2016
Ways Forward
SCM CI CD APM
RM Agile Dev QAPPM SecITSM
Project Requirement User Story Defect Ticket
BuildChange Set Release
Vulnerability
Failure Alert
Automated
Test
DevOps
Scaling Agile

35. Answer questions about your software development processes:
• Which teams are producing the most severe defects?
• Why are those defects happening?
• How quickly are defects fixed?
• What types of features result in the most customer complaints?
• …

36. Activity

37. Perspective
Individual measurement
and retrospection
Ways Forward
Individual, team,
organization
Activity
Habitual productivity
patterns
Observation
Mitigate context
switches
Perspective
Activity
Ways
Observation @gail_murphy
@tasktop
Software Developer Productivity:
What we Know and How to Make it Better

38. © Tasktop 2016
Contact
You can reach me via gail.murphy@tasktop.com or @gail_murphy
For more information on Tasktop products, see www.tasktop.com
[FSE 2014] André N. Meyer, Thomas Fritz, Gail C. Murphy and Thomas Zimmermann. Software
Developers’ Perceptions of Productivity. In Proc. of 22nd ACM SIGSOFT International
Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering, ACM, 2014.
References
Acknowledgements
Thanks to the many participants in our studies. This work was funded in part by NSERC, in part
by ABB and has been motivated through conversations with many colleagues at Tasktop.