Brad Meiseles, Maximizing Engineering Productivity

© 2009 VMware Inc. All rights reserved

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Maximizing Developer ProductivityMassTLC Round Table

February 9, 2012

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Agenda

Factors that impact productivity

Measuring productivity

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“Begin with the end in mind.”

- Steven Covey Habit 2 from “The 7 habits of highly effective people”)

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"The major problems of our work are not so much technological as

sociological in nature."

- Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister Peopleware : Productive Projects and Teams

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“to build a successful organization and team you must get the right people on

the bus.”

- Jim Collins Good to Great

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"Developers prefer to use agile methods. Managers prefer to use heavy

methods." 

- Anonymous Comment in IT Survey

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Measuring Productivity

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“Micromanagement is evil. Measuring lines of code is useless, because less

truly is more.”

- Mikael Jansson From an Answer on Stack Overflow

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“Developer productivity is really a qualitative assessment, not a quantitative

measurement.”

- Me

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"I'm a little verklempt. Talk amongst yourselves"

- Mike Myers “Coffee Talk with Linda Richman,” SNL

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Topic 1. Goals

What are we building and why does it matter?

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Topic 2. Work Environment

Does the work environment help or hinder productivity?

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Topic 3. People and Teams

Do we have the right people? How are we organized into teams?

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Topic 4. Processes and Tools

Is our methodology working? Do the tools we use help or hinder productivity?

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Topic 5. Measuring Productivity?

What do we measure? How do we interpret the data we gather?

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Thank you!