Productivity Panel • C. Majors, B. Böckeler, M. Greiler, D. Terhorst-North & J. Lewis • GOTO 2024

Productivity cannot be measured through a single metric - it requires looking at multiple dimensions and both quantitative and qualitative data

Developer experience (DX) is shifting focus away from pure productivity metrics toward understanding how developers feel about their work environment, tools, and processes

AI coding assistants like GitHub Copilot are generally viewed positively by developers for increasing productivity, but should be used thoughtfully with an understanding of their limitations

Remote work is here to stay but needs to be balanced with intentional in-person collaboration, especially for junior developers who benefit from osmosis learning

Junior engineers are valuable and hiring them is important for long-term team health, but requires investment in proper mentoring and support systems

Traditional productivity metrics like lines of code or commit counts are poor measures - focus should be on measuring work flowing through the system rather than individual output

Developer surveys and sentiment analysis can provide reliable data about team health and effectiveness when properly designed

Team productivity is a system characteristic rather than an individual trait - improvements come from optimizing the overall system of work

Management should focus on understanding the “question behind the question” when asked to measure productivity - what outcome are they actually trying to achieve?

Effective organizations focus on feedback loops, learning, and improving the developer experience rather than solely measuring output metrics