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How Google measures developer productivity | Ciera Jaspan, Collin Green (Google)
Engineering Enablement by Abi Noda
The Problem With Reductionist Metrics for Productivity
Using reductionist metrics like number of commits or pull requests to measure productivity can lead to several issues. Firstly, such metrics overlook the human element, incentivizing individuals to game the system rather than focusing on meaningful work. This can distort the process and lead to undesired outcomes. Secondly, simplifying productivity measurement to a few convenient metrics fails to capture essential trade-offs such as velocity and quality. By focusing solely on one aspect, the broader picture and important considerations like bug count, reliability, and robustness are neglected. Additionally, a myopic measurement strategy can result in high attrition rates as employees may feel pressured to deliver quantity over quality, impacting long-term retention. In essence, using reductionist metrics for productivity can lead to skewed results, miss critical trade-offs, and disregard the impact on individuals in the organization.
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