Using Evidence Science Instead of Mind Reading to Measure Developer Success | Monktoberfest 2023

In the behavioral sciences, the tendency to engage in "mind reading" - assuming knowledge of others' thoughts or beliefs - can lead to maladaptive practices, particularly in software engineering teams. This phenomenon affects crucial areas like developer productivity, an often misunderstood metric that is inconsistently defined across teams. The presentation introduces a "Three Layer Productivity Framework" to differentiate between production, productivity, and performance. Utilizing this framework, research has highlighted the misalignment in defining and measuring developer success and the preference among engineers for quality-oriented metrics over production-focused ones. The talk provides suggestions for how engineering organizations may align their success metrics more closely with the actual values and insights of their software engineers.