McKinsey: Yes, you can measure software developer productivity

As usual, take it with a big grain of salt when business consultants make bold claims.

"... In building our set of metrics, we looked to expand on the two sets of metrics already developed by the software industry. The first is DORA metrics, named for Google’s DevOps research and assessment team. These are the closest the tech sector has to a standard, and they are great at measuring outcomes. When a DORA metric returns a subpar outcome, it is a signal to investigate what has gone wrong, which can often involve protracted sleuthing. For example, if a metric such as deployment frequency increases or decreases, there can be multiple causes. Determining what they are and how to resolve them is often not straightforward.

The second set of industry-developed measurements is SPACE metrics (satisfaction and well-being, performance, activity, communication and collaboration, and efficiency and flow), which GitHub and Microsoft Research developed to augment DORA metrics. By adopting an individual lens, particularly around developer well-being, SPACE metrics are great at clarifying whether an engineering organization is optimized. For example, an increase in interruptions that developers experience indicates a need for optimization.

On top of these already powerful metrics, our approach seeks to identify what can be done to improve how products are delivered and what those improvements are worth, without the need for heavy instrumentation. Complementing DORA and SPACE metrics with opportunity-focused metrics can create an end-to-end view of software developer productivity (Exhibit 1)."

Yes, you can measure software developer productivity | McKinsey Measuring, tracking, and benchmarking developer productivity has long been considered a black box. It doesn’t have to be that way.

Exhibit 1