Developer productivity:skilled Versus Average

Developer productivity:skilled Versus Average

Neal Ford Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.

Let's debunk SoME of the MyThS about developer Skills for Project Man-agers who has been assigned for the first time to Software projects. Under-stand that really good software developers is much more productive than average ones. In fact, some statistics say that really good developers is mul-tiple orders of magnitude better than poor ones. One order of magnitude is the same as multiplying a quantity by 10. The point is, a skilled programmer isn ' t just a little better than a average one; The difference is huge.
What should this mean to we newly minted software project managers as they plan the development of this product? Managers erroneously think that even if you can ' t get the best and brightest, you still get some usefulness out of medio- CRE developers. But building software isn ' t like digging a ditch, where even the poorest ditch diggers can make a hole.
In software development, what's programmed today becomes the Foundation for tomorrow. If you have mediocre developers building your foundation, the really good developers has to go back and fix the flaws bef Ore they can move on. Hiring mediocre or average developers slows project Velocity.* frequently, taking a poor performer off the team is more being Neficial than adding a good one.
Couple this with the fact that adding people to a late project makes it even later, and you can understand what most enterp Rise development moves at a gla-cial pace. The Nonexperienced software project manager might reason that if adding more warehouse men allows a truck to be loaded FAs TER, hiring additional programmers would shorten the time necessary to complete a software project.
* Velocity:a term used in agile software development to show the rate of progress for a team or a team member, i.e. Much an individual programmer would be able to produce in a given time period.
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??????????????? That's won ' t work. It would take time, and pulling other programmers off-task, to get the new guys/gals up-to-date. In addition, the communication channels increase and each addition to the team. With a team of one, there are one chan-nel:betsy Sue to Bill. Add Mike, and you jump to three channels. The number of channels continues to grow exponentially.
Here's the formula:n (n–1)/2. With a people on the team, you are 12 (12–1)/2 channels, or relationships you must maintain as the project manager. ADD one more person, and you now has an communication channels to oversee.
Building software with average developers exposes both project Myths:1) that's can shorten a project by adding people, a nd 2) that it's OK to has aver-age developers produce average (buggy/off-task) code at a average pace. In truth, average developers drag overall productivity down and the project takes longer than necessary to complete.
The solution? Give good developers powerful tools. You ' ll get higher-quality software faster. Second, have warm bodies doesn ' t help projects, and have to babysit poor developers cuts the productivity of your good Developers, who is craftsmen. Software is too complex to turn into an assembly-line manufac-turing process.
Want faster software development? Spend the extra money to hire and nurture excellent software developers. It would pay off in both the short term, and in the long term when it's time to maintain the code.

Developer productivity:skilled Versus Average