The speaker's research focuses on working with industry to understand real-world problems and find ways to address them, engaging students with an applied perspective. The research delves into the complex construct of productivity, exploring its various definitions amongst developers and managers to bring improvement in real-world scenarios.
This week's guest is Dr. Margaret-Anne Storey, who goes by the name Peggy. Peggy is a professor of Computer Science at the University of Victoria, the Chief Scientist at DX, and co-author of the SPACE Framework, which is the topic of focus in this episode. Today’s conversation discusses what the SPACE framework is and what went into developing the metrics and categories. Peggy also shares where she sees this line of research heading next.
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Discussion points:
(1:29) Peggy’s background
(4:01) What the SPACE framework is
(5:55) Why the researchers came together for this paper
(7:27) The process of writing this paper
(9:52) How the SPACE categories and acronym emerged
(11:50) The authors’ intention for how this framework would be received
(13:26) Finding a definition for what developer productivity is
(17:08) The metrics included in the SPACE framework
(24:48) How SPACE is different from DORA
(26:17) Why lines of code and number of pull requests were included as example metrics
(27:14) What Peggy is thinking about next
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Mentions and links:
Where to find Peggy: Twitter, Website
The SPACE of Developer Productivity: There’s more to it than you think by Nicole Forsgren, Margaret-Anne Storey, Chandra Madilla, Thomas Zimmerman, Brian Houck, and Jenna Butler
Abi’s summary of the SPACE paper
Peggy’s talk, What Does Productivity Actually Mean for Developers?