DevEx: What actually drives Developer Productivity?
A short literature review
A few weeks ago, something significant happened in our industry.
Abi Noda, Margaret-Anne Storey, Nicole Forsgreen, and Michaela Greiler published a new paper to answer one of the hottest topics in tech, What drives Developer Productivity?
For a long time, companies have tried to measure Developer Productivity through the output or deliverables developers produce within a given time frame. It focuses on the quantity and quality of code, features developed, bug fixes, and project milestones achieved.
Finding new ways to measure or define Developer Productivity has remained challenging, and I am really grateful for the depth of research presented in this paper.
If we look at past approaches, these have failed to account for the complex and diverse activities developers perform, leading to the question of what leaders should measure and focus on to improve developer productivity?
This is where the concept of developer experience (DevEx) comes in as a new approach that provides valuable insights and opportunities for improving developer productivity.
This literature review provides a short and comprehensive analysis of the three dimensions of DevEx presented by the authors.
To start with, one thing that stood out from this paper is that the authors provided a generally available DevEx definition:
Developer Experience encompasses how developers feel about, think about and value their work.
The first dimension of DevEx is feedback loops, which refers to the speed and quality of responses to actions performed. Unfortunately, slow feedback loops can interrupt development, leading to frustration and delays as developers wait or decide to switch tasks. Therefore, organisations should aim to shorten feedback loops by identifying areas where development tools can be accelerated, or human hand-off processes improved.
The second dimension of DevEx is cognitive load, which refers to the mental processing required for a developer to perform a task. Reducing cognitive load is important because it impedes developers' most important responsibility of delivering value to customers. Therefore, organisations should reduce cognitive load by eliminating unnecessary obstacles in the development process, usually through automation.
The third dimension of DevEx is the flow state, which refers to a mental state in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment. Frequent flow state experiences lead to higher productivity, innovation, and employee development. Therefore, organisations should focus on creating the optimal conditions for the flow state to improve DevEx.
The authors also illustrated the three different dimensions, through the below model:
Completely off topic, but one of my first thoughts was, I am going to turn this into a Venn diagram like the Product Manager, I am. Alas, I just left it as is :)
Measuring DevEx is critical for identifying opportunities for improvement, detecting trends, and understanding the impact of investments. The paper suggests that surveys are crucial for measuring DevEx and capturing developers' feedback on friction points in the software-delivery process. To do this, organisations need to invest in researchers and/or proper tools because the way surveys are designed significantly impacts the data's reliability.
I understand that this is only sometimes possible, so as Product Managers, we need to step up our game and look for different opportunities to hone those skills or at least build a strong business case for why you need the skills in the team.
To ensure that the data collected is comprehensive, organisations should collect data from people and systems to gain complete visibility into their software delivery processes.
In addition, the paper recommends breaking down results by team and persona to gain insight into the challenges developers face.
Finally the research concludes by emphasising the importance of investing in DevEx for both larger organisations and startups. DevEx is critical to innovating quickly, finding market fit, and fueling business performance through improvements in engineering efficiency, product quality, and employee retention.
By focusing on DevEx, leaders can gain a proven path toward building high-performing organisations.
The paper provides real-world examples from eBay and Pfizer, illustrating the benefits of investing in DevEx. For instance, eBay focuses on improving developer productivity and experience through its multiyear "Velocity Initiative," while Pfizer uses DevEx to enhance team collaboration and reduce time spent on meetings.
Overall, the paper offers a practical framework for understanding DevEx and presents a measurement framework that combines feedback from developers with data about the engineering systems they interact with.
These frameworks give leaders clear, actionable insights into what to measure and where to focus to improve developer productivity.
Finally, this is a very short review but I want to encourage design, engineering, and product folks alike to engage with the paper and some of the follow-up content. DevEx it’s a foundational part of products, one we cannot ignore or treat just like a resource.
See ya next Friday!
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