4 ways companies can hinder a Software Developers productivity
I’ve often thought when working as a software developer that a job can sometimes make us feel unproductive. As developers we feel most productive when we write code. It’s a practical job and its why we like doing it. We create things out of thin air that have a tangible benefit to other people. It’s pretty unique in that way.
When a job stops a developing writing code for any amount of time. Well, there needs to be a good reason for it. Otherwise it’s wasted time right?
Being included in meetings that have no concern to you
Sometimes developers get pulled into all sorts of meetings. Because you know, they might be needed — it might apply to them. But often this isn’t the case. Because developers sit in this weird area in the organisation — often working on the thing that underpins the very business — it’s easy to look at them and see that every meeting under the sun applies to them. When that isn’t the case.
Insisting that UX is involved at every stage
UX people have their place, sure. They are integral to saving the developer from their own demise. Turning something that looked like Windows 98 into Windows 10. But they aren’t always needed. Sometimes things are trivial, like, really trivial. And for these tasks, it just isn’t necessary to get QA, UX and everyone else involved. Sometimes a developer is enough.
Insisting that JIRA tasks be created for everything
Sort of echoing my last point a bit. But sometimes there are tasks that are so self explanatory. They really don’t need documenting. Sometimes companies will insist that everything is a user story and everything must be broken down, examined, discussed and estimated. This can be useful for big features. But we need to learn to be flexible with this. It is a kind of arrogance that just wastes a lot of time. It is ironic to claim to follow agile whilst demonstrating the agility of an oil tanker.
Insist that everyone says something in a stand up
Stand ups should be a place where things are flagged if they need to be. No one cares if someone is doing something and its going fine. We want to know about blockers, things people need help with or things that could cause issues for someone else. The sprint board tells us what people are working on. We don’t need it repeated. But there is pressure to say something in a lot of stand ups. A lot of companies really don’t see a stand up in the way they should. So everyone listens to everyone else's plan for the day whilst trying not to fall asleep. Be honest, if you have stand ups like these, how much of what people say is actually useful to anyone else? If it’s less than 50% then the majority of the time is being wasted.
These are just some of the things I can think of. They’re based on personal experience and honestly I could go on. I’m not exactly a people person but I understand that this job demands that you try to be — sometimes. Hopefully these points come across as not just complaining but also somewhat constructive.
