Factors that improve developer productivity range from role planning to collaboration with QA colleagues, vendor tools used, methodology choices and changes, and even activities outside of workflow.
Programming is a lengthy process and sometimes requires long hours and meeting tight deadlines, which can lead to overwork. Developers are often advised to remove potential distractions to make the most of their time. And this constant need to perform can be detrimental to their productivity. Today we’ve chosen to show you 5 of the best ways you can improve developer productivity according to Devops Digest.
5 Interesting Ways to Improve Developer Productivity
Automate Your Workflow
Software developers usually have enough tedious and repetitive tasks that waste their valuable time. Tasks such as generating API documentation, garnering data, or generating reports can be automated, save time and effort for developers and also increase their productivity.
Similarly, according to Vlad Giverts, Co-founder of Warmspace, if dealing with bugs takes away more than 20% of your engineering time, then it indicates you have a quality/architecture problem that diminishes your productivity. Tools such as ‘Shake’ can significantly cut down the time developers spend on fixing bugs as it automates bug reporting so that developers get detailed reports from users in a jiffy. When every critical piece of information developers require for fixing a bug is at their disposal, they can save plenty of time. It provides developers with additional time to focus on other tasks and, therefore, helps them stay more productive.
Identify and Eliminate Barriers to Productivity
Identifying and eliminating barriers to productivity is as critical as evaluation of productivity. The development team can confront obstacles from different sources. Multitasking can be a severe obstacle to productivity. When developers need to switch between different tasks, they feel more strained due to continuous pressure, which leads to compromised performance. Moreover, improper communication among team members can become a productivity barrier. It can even lead to frequent interruptions and delays in task completion, impacting the organization’s overall outcome. To eliminate these obstacles, you first have to identify them and recognize their origins. This will help in better enhancement of developer productivity
Communicate Effectively
Regular communication with your developers is a critical factor in boosting their productivity. Healthy communication can help your team to freely discuss their needs, issues, and ideas. They should have an opportunity to do so, else frustration and unhappiness can build up, which is highly detrimental for productivity. You can provide them with opportunities through frequent one-on-one meetings with developers.
Integrate Continuously
Many developers use CI/CD to streamline their software releases so that customers get updates swifter. It can help enhance productivity by ensuring quality production, designing smaller, more precise, and less risky releases, delivering software swifter and more reliably, automating bug identification and fixation, and minimizing manual testing time.
Minimize Distractions
Distractions can significantly impact the work process. According to data presented by Gloria Mark, it takes, on an average, about 25 minutes to re-focus on work after an interruption. To ensure your developers have minimal distractions, you should eliminate any work that is not strictly related to development. This includes reducing the number of redundant staff meetings that can affect their workflow.
You should provide developers with a distraction-free environment. For instance, if your developers lack sound and visual privacy, and are distracted by the noise of their surroundings, then you should provide them sound-proof pods that provide privacy. Alternatively, if your developers have decent working conditions, but the distractions arise from their computers, then software such as ‘Cold Turkey,’ should be provided, which blocks websites, games, and apps to boost productivity and ensures better focus on work. You should constantly work with your developers to significantly reduce the number of distractions they face daily, so that their productivity drastically improves.
