Programming productivity: Difference between revisions

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==Terminology==

Productivity is an important topic investigated in disciplines as various as manufacturing, organizational psychology, industrial engineering, strategic management, finance, accounting, marketing and economics. Levels of analysis include the individual, the group, divisional, organizational and national levels .<ref name="ramirez2004" />. Due to this diversity, there is no clear-cut definition of productivity and its influencing factors, although research has been conducted for more than a century. Like in software engineering, this lack of common agreement on what actually constitutes productivity, is perceived as a major obstacle for a substantiated discussion of productivity.<ref>Neal, A., Hesketh, B., Anderson, N., Ones, D. S., Sinangil, H. K., Viswesvaran, C. (ed.) Handbook of Industrial, Work and Organizational Psychology Productivity in Organizations. Sage Publications Ltd, 2002, 8-24</ref> The following definitions describe the best consensus on the terminology.<ref name="tangen2005">Tangen, S. Demystifying productivity and performance, International Journal of Productivity and Performance, 2005, 54, 34-36</ref>

===Productivity===

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* the manufacturing process for a single product or group of related products;

* the factory; and

* the company’scompany's entire factory system

As long classical production processes are considered a straightforward metric of productivity is simple: how many units of a product of specified quality is produced by which costs. For intellectual work, productivity is much trickier. How do we measure the productivity of authors, scientists, or engineers? Due to the rising importance of [[knowledge work]] (as opposed to manual work),<ref name="drucker1999">Drucker, P. F. Knowledge-Worker Productivity: The Biggest Challenge. California Management Review, 1999, 41, 79-94</ref> many researchers tried to develop productivity measurement means that can be applied in a non-manufacturing context. It is commonly agreed that the nature of knowledge work fundamentally differs from manual work and, hence, factors besides the simple output/input ratio need to be taken into account, e.g. quality, timeliness, autonomy, project success, customer satisfaction and innovation. However, the research communities in neither discipline have been able to establish broadly applicable and accepted means for productivity measurement yet.<ref name="ramirez2004">Ramírez, Y. W., Nembhard, D. A. Measuring knowledge worker productivity: A taxonomy. Journal of Intellectual Capital, 2004, 5, 602-628</ref> The same holds for more specific area of programming productivity.

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===Performance===

The term performance is even broader than productivity and profitability and covers a plethora of factors that influence a company’scompany's success. Hence, well-known performance controlling instruments like the [[Balanced Scorecard]] do include productivity as a factor that is central but not unique. Other relevant factors are e.g. the customers’ or stakeholders’ perception of the company.

===Efficiency and effectiveness===

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The [[personalities]] of software programmers influence the used coding styles which, in turn, influence the productivity of the programmers.<ref>{{Cite journal|title = Links between the personalities, styles and performance in computer programming|url = http://elib.uni-stuttgart.de/opus/volltexte/2015/10315/|journal = Journal of Systems and Software|date = 2016|pages = 228–241|volume = 111|doi = 10.1016/j.jss.2015.09.011|first1 = Zahra|last1 = Karimi|first2 = Ahmad|last2 = Baraani-Dastjerdi|first3 = Nasser|last3 = Ghasem-Aghaee|first4 = Stefan|last4 = Wagner|arxiv = 1611.10169|s2cid = 400518}}</ref>

== In popular culture ==

In 2007, the [[xkcd]] comic popularized the concept of a [[Ballmer Peak]]—that a programmer, with just the right amount of [[inebriation]], achieves a high state of productivity. The Ballmer Peak is named after former Microsoft CEO, [[Steve Ballmer]],<ref>{{Cite web |title=Ballmer Peak |url=https://xkcd.com/323/ |access-date=2023-10-07 |website=xkcd}}</ref> and is likely a play on [[Balmer series]] of hydrogen spectral lines named for [[Johann Balmer]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=323: Ballmer Peak - explain xkcd |url=https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/323:_Ballmer_Peak |access-date=2023-10-07 |website=www.explainxkcd.com}}</ref>

== References ==

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* ''Estimating Software Costs'', [[Capers Jones]], McGraw-Hill, 2007. {{ISBN|978-0-07-148300-1}}.

[[Category:Productivity]]

[[Category:Production economics]]

[[Category:Software engineering costs]]

[[Category:Software project management]]