As a tech company, we spend a lot of time and money finding and hiring the right developers; then the investment stops.
The average tenure of a developer at a startup is just over a year meaning every 12–16 months, we can expect a high turnover rate. I don’t know about you, but the amount of knowledge that leaves with each employee is painful, opaque, and generally contributes to the technical debt over time.
What about a training program? Nope, no time
What about an amazing employee onboarding experience? No budget, no time.
Has our new hire become productive yet? Yeah… sort of, I think.
Are developers happy here? I think so…
It’s no wonder people leave after a year. They get in, they help out and learn for a bit, and then they are either not recognized and moved up, or they feel otherwise unsatisfied with the company and want to explore a new opportunity.
It’s amazing that we would spend $15,000 dollars to find the right person and then spend no time, money, or effort giving them the support they need to be successful in the role. I’m guilty of this too. As a small team, I rarely make the time to check in frequently enough during the first few weeks of a new employee’s time.
Here are my top questions I’d love answers to:
- How is the team performing this week compared to last week?
- I gave “Sarah” a raise last month, how has that impacted her performance?
- “Jane” got an equity bump last week, how has that impacted her performance?
- Who is underperforming this week? Why?
- Who is the most consistent team member this month?
- Who contributed the most this sprint?
I could be a much better manager if I had these answers at hand. I’d be able to spot problems as soon as they occur instead of finding out a developer has been unhappy for weeks. What if I’m giving too much work to someone and not giving enough to another. What if one developer likes to be challenged while another gets overwhelmed easier. All of these questions I believe I have an answer to after several months but they’re mostly intuition. I’d prefer to have the data.
This is why I’m testing a new product called Keepa. Its purpose is to help high-performance development teams build excellent products and companies.
As a developer myself I hate the idea of being time tracked. Sometimes taking a 30-minute walk does more for my productivity than staying an extra 2 hours at a desk. This product is not meant for time tracking. Time is as poor of a performance indicator as ass-in-seat management. It’s meant to help teams and managers get insight into how each unique person on their team can achieve the most.
With this data, you could easily
- Reward the most productive developers or teams
- Recognize members for outstanding contributions
- Find unhappy developers faster to try and intervene before they leave.
- Keep developers at your company longer
I’d love to hear your feedback on using tracking for the good of the developer and team. You can learn more about Keepa here.
