We believe that developers that enjoy their craft are also productive.
There are a lot of people talking about developer productivity these days but this just looks at the outcome of our activities. What makes developers enjoy their jobs? How does great developer experience look like?
We call it Developer Joy.
What is Developer Joy?
Measuring outcome metrics like cycle time or deployment frequency is good. Asking your developers what areas to improve is gold. Based on that we defined 8 areas to ask
- how important this specific area is for the team
- how satisfied the developers are with the area
Based on that we calculate the opportunity score and make recommendation on the
Here are the 8 areas:
1. Speed to ship quality code sustainably 
This refers to how quickly your team ships high quality code without inducing burnout. This covers the typical development lifecycle from starting to work on a story to deploying a feature into production.
2. Waiting time 
This refers to the amount of time developers spend waiting. Some examples of this are build time, test time, time spent waiting for code review and time spent in superfluous meetings. This highlights time where developer flow state could be better maximised.
3. Execution independence 
This refers to your team’s ability to deliver what you need to without depending on other teams regardless of who owns the code.
4. Access to tools, processes, and practices 
This refers to how much effort it is to discover and onboard a new tool, process or practice that your team needs or would benefit from.
5. Effort managing external standards 
This refers to the amount of maintenance or platform tax your team need to pay as a result of company standards being raised. This work is generated externally to the team. – eg. security, compliance
6. Managing code, pipeline, and infrastructure 
This refers to the amount of maintenance or platform tax your team need to pay as a result of company standards being raised. This work is generated externally to the team. – eg. security, compliance
7. Ramp Up Time 
This refers to how quickly an engineer can be effective after being hired or transferring internally.
8. Developer Satisfaction 
How satisfied are you with your ability to be productive.
The Results
After running the test with developers at conferences all over the world here are the current results:
How do we calculate the results? 📊
For each area we’re collecting
- the importance of the area for your team (1-10)
- how satisfied you are with the area (1-10)
Opportunity Score = importance + max(importance – satisfaction, 0)
Out of the opportunity score we generate a traffic light system
| Opportunity Score | Developer Joy |
|---|---|
| < 10 | Good |
| 10 | Alright |
| >= 11 | Improve |
Sven Peters 