Ask HN: How do you measure developers productivity?

[jsifalda]

Hey guys, i am wondering, how do you measure productivity of developers in your team? I have been using RescueTime app but is too general, not focused on developers. Also, i tried WakaTime plugin into code editor, but it is saying a much... just general stats. Any tips which data collect? Or how to measure collected data? Eg. number of commits a day, number of pull requests? Lines added vs lines removed? Etc?

Thanks in advance George

[bemmu]

This sounds like trying to judge a visual artist based on how many liters of paint they used, or installing a security camera to monitor how long they sat in front of their canvas.

[jsifalda]

Nothing like this... mainly i want to know for my personal benefits like... am I productive or not?!

[iamben]

When I worked as a dev in an agency - I _hated_ with a passion anything that felt like it was tracking my time or productivity. It made me not want to be there and made me felt like the time I spent figuring out how to do my job was wrong. Maybe I'm being oversensitive, but it just felt so untrusting.

Working for myself I use Harvest. Start the clock when I'm working on something, stop it when I'm not. That gives me a decent idea on how to charge for what I do.

[jki275]

give reasonable deadlines and ask them to meet them.

any of the metrics you're asking about are useless for measuring developer productivity.

[howard941]

I completely agree about the uselessness of the proposed metrics, and sort of agree with you on deadlines but even those shouldn't be coming down from on high if they're to ever be met. They need to be arrived at after thoroughly consulting with the people who'll be doing the development, and then refreshed after one or both feel the need.