[NYC Scrum] 4 bad ideas about productivity... and what Agilists should do instead

4 bad ideas about
productivity… and what
Agilists should do instead
Jason Yip
Reinvention Cycle LLC

Your CEO asks you
to help improve
productivity. How do
you respond?

Who’s been asked
something like this in the
last 1-2 months?

This is happening now
because money isn’t
cheap any more.

The end of 0% interest rates: what it means for tech startups and the industry

The end of 0% interest rates: what it means for tech startups and the industry
Agile was born here

Lean and Agile should
matter more, not less,
when money isn’t cheap…

…but it needs to be
framed correctly.

I’m going to cover 4
trendy, but bad, ideas
about productivity and
what Agilists should do
instead.

Idea: You can’t
measure
productivity

There are many bad ways
to measure productivity…
hours worked, lines of
code, story points, # of
PRs, etc.

There is a pattern to bad
productivity measures.
Let me explain…

We engage in activities (effort) to
build features (output) that cause
changes in customer behaviours
(outcomes) that eventually lead to
value to the organization (impact).

Measuring developer productivity? A response to McKinsey
(Activities)
(Features)
(Customer
behaviour)
(Value to
organisation)

Bad productivity
measures focus on
effort or output.

Good productivity
measures look at
impact versus effort.

[NYC Scrum] 4 bad ideas about productivity... and what Agilists should do instead

Understanding the value
of impact and the cost of
effort is not a new idea
for the Agile community.

Impact mapping
Drawing impact maps

Stable teams make it easier to
assess cost of effort.

Stable teams make it
easier to assess this
Impact mapping helps
you understand this

Instead of “You can’t
measure productivity”,
measure productivity based
on impact over effort.

Idea: Developer
experience is
equivalent to
productivity

A current trend in
productivity is the idea of
“Developer Experience”

“One important measure of
productivity is personal perception…”
The SPACE of Developer Productivity - ACM Queue
“Developer experience encompasses
how developers feel about, think
about, and value their work.”
DevEx: What Actually Drives Productivity - ACM Queue

Poor developer
experience is probably a
leading indicator of
productivity problems…

But “good experience” is
not equivalent to
productive.

Saying “yes” feels easier than
saying “no”

“No interruptions” feels better than
feedback.

Doing what you’ve always done feels
easier than learning something new.

Pay attention to both
developer experience and
productivity. One doesn’t
automatically lead to the
other.

Idea: Platforms
automatically
improve productivity.

Platform reduce the cost of
effort by consolidating
costs and/or reusing
capabilities.

If the teams had the
choice, would they use the
platform?
(“platform as product”)

“Platform-as-product”
platforms improve
productivity; “Because I
said so” platforms do not.

Idea: AI automatically
improves
productivity.

AI improves productivity by
automating creative tasks
that were not previously
automatable.

We can always be more productive,
if the outputs don’t have to work.

“…since AI allows respondents to produce a
much greater amount of code in the same
amount of time, it is possible, even likely,
that changelists are growing in size. DORA
has consistently shown that larger changes
are slower and more prone to creating
instability.”
DORA | Accelerate State of DevOps Report 2024

AI is not magic. Assess AI
productivity based on
actual impact and cost, not
based on vibes.

[NYC Scrum] 4 bad ideas about productivity... and what Agilists should do instead

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