Why developer productivity shouldn’t be measured

Not by hours, not by money, not by completed projects

Productivity metrics are difficult to handle for many developers.

Recall the last time you scrolled through your Medium feed. How many stories were about productivity?

If you’re anything like the average Medium reader, there probably quite a few articles in that category. It doesn’t take a massive search to stumble upon the next story about how some magic green juice will make you a millionaire in just 20 days. Or something like that.

This is not a rant about Medium, obviously. It can sometimes feel like the p*rnhub of productivity, but that’s just the zeitgeist. Other media outlets are the same. Productivity is the one defining element of today’s age, it seems.

Or of the past 500 years. Ever since the invention of the printing press, and since the industrial revolution in particular, humanity’s focus has been on one thing: make more stuff in less time, for less money.

By automating repetitive stuff that workers used to by hand, humanity has managed to produce more and more, in less and less time. Machines are taking over large parts of today’s workload.

Automation has eradicated many jobs. But it has also created new ones.