"Year Of Efficiency" How To Track Developer Productivity?

As 2023 is the year of efficiency, it's time for companies to refocus on the priorities and staffing choices of their dev team. And for that, industry leaders should thoroughly assess and track the developer's productivity.

Developer's productivity measures how efficiently the candidate is handling development operations (as per time duration or any criteria) and whether their performance meets the expected output scales or not. Being a vital endeavor, it mirrors the overall team productivity and plays a major role in business success.

Here's how you can track developer productivity for your team:

Planned to Done Metrics

Planned to Done ratio, as the name suggests, is the metric that measures the amount of work planned/committed to the amount of work done. With these metrics, organizations can assess the productivity level of the developer and the expected work output from the same. The values of PDR can indicate the company's progress toward its goals and address any issues that may occur.

To interpret the Planned to Done ratio of a developer, you must divide the number of tasks to be done by the ones that are completed successfully. Turn out the value into percentage if you want to get your Planned to Done percentage estimation.

If your developer has more tasks pending and fewer tasks done, they're less productive. However, if there is less difference between work planned and done, then the developer is more productive.

With a good Planned to Done estimate, developers can offer faster and newer features/capabilities to the customers. They can also bring in better solutions and help businesses to set/assess the company goals. It's recommended to always keep a Planned to Done percentage of above 70% for best results.

Cycle Time

Cycle time is another important metric that evaluates the efficacy and productivity of a developer. It indicates the total time taken for a project to be completed from its start to end time. If your software development team spends too much time creating a software program (from the first feature to its deployment), it means they are causing higher cycle time and hence, less productivity.

Meanwhile, if the cycle time is less, it indicates the developers are highly efficient and much more productive. At this rate, the company can expect increased revenues, good customer renewal rates, and an efficient team.

To calculate the cycle time for your dev team, you have to apply a simple formula. Divide the Net Production Time (NPT) by the deadline (time required to finish the task). Make sure to subtract the downtime in between, which could be lunch breaks or meetings. And that'll give you an estimation of the cycle time.

Besides interpreting the productivity of developers, cycle time can help company leaders to know about the efficacy of the planning process. They can also quantify the speed at which dev teams can deliver efficient software programs.

Missed Defects

Missed defects interpretation helps team leaders to assess any faults and bugs missed by the developers during the software development program. To calculate this value, you simply need to find out the defect escape rate for a dev team. For that, look for the number of defects during the pre-production and post-production phase of the software. Depending on the estimate, the defect escape rate can be either high or low.

A high defect escape rate indicates that there are issues with the testing procedures, and the team lacks productivity. Meanwhile, a low defect escape rate means that there is no major issue with the testing procedures, and the team is quite productive in delivering high-quality outcomes.

Time Tracking

Time tracking is one of the most crucial aspects to consider when evaluating the productivity of a dev team. It helps to monitor the total time spent by the developers, including their overtime, logins/logouts, floor time, task times, and more. Additionally, it allows you to track the developers who complete their tasks beforehand and the ones who are lagging behind.

As time tracking gives comprehensive time records against tasks and planned activities, you can monitor the areas where the developers are underutilizing the resources. You can eventually replace such tasks with automation, so developers can invest their time in the critical areas of the production process.

Quality Over Quantity

While evaluating individual developers, you must encourage employees that offer quality over quantity. If a developer can do multiple tasks in a given time frame but still have to deal with lots of errors and bugs, your dev team may be lacking in productivity.

Similarly, if you have an employee who gives good quality productive work but a little less quantity, it's still acceptable. You can discuss leveraging both quality and quantity with the developer, however, it's definitely better than quantity over bad quality work outcomes.

Customer Feedbacks

If you're getting a satisfied and positive response from your customers, it indicates you're going in the right direction, and you've a productive dev team. However, if you've been witnessing a lot of negative feedback (like bugs and errors), there's a possibility that you have got a less productive dev team.

That's why it's recommended to conduct customer surveys every now and then and interpret their likes and dislikes thoroughly. Check if you've been witnessing a lot of complaints lately, and fix any loopholes that you may find. Compare the current feedback with the prior ones for better analysis.

Track it Right!

Tracking developer productivity is important for developing high-end softwares programs for your company. With the right metrics, you can easily assess the efficacy and potency of a developer or dev team. However, if you're looking for an easier way to track productivity, you can try Brix's remote team management solutions.

Our incredible services offer complete employee analysis with details on time overview, task overview, time tracking, active time summary, reporting system, and more. With its efficient features, you can stay assured of a highly productive and well-connected dev team in your organization. Try Brix to boost your team productivity today!

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