One of the most important factors of dev productivity is a good developer experience. Give developers a productivity boost with these concrete strategies.
While vendors and thought leaders claim to have the panacea to developers' struggles, it's unlikely that a cookie-cutter plan or singular tool can solve all dev productivity concerns. Enterprise development teams should follow a multipronged approach to get developers producing quality code -- and lots of it.
The factors that improve developer productivity include role planning, collaboration with QA peers, tool choices, methodology choices and changes, and even extracurricular activities. Determine what works best for your team with these 18 tips and expert insights from Informa TechTarget writers.
What is developer productivity?
Developer productivity is the ability of a development team to efficiently produce quality work within a set time frame.
A flattened definition of dev productivity is the amount of output produced for every unit of input. This gives the impression that developer productivity is simple to measure and improve, positioning development as a linear production line where input A directly corresponds to output B.
The software development process is not like that. It involves a diverse mix of tasks and a variety of inputs, many of which are not readily quantified with a simple formula or productivity metric. Measuring developer productivity solely on lines of code written or software delivery cycle times ignores important aspects of development work and their effect on team productivity. While these measurements have their place, developer productivity is better defined -- and improved -- along the lines of developer experience and culture, which give companies a more holistic view of the way their dev teams function.
Why is developer productivity important?
Developer productivity matters to both the organization at large and to individual developers. For the organization, productive development teams contribute to the bottom line by reducing operational costs, increasing profitability, and increasing customer satisfaction and retention through the reliable production of quality products.
For individual developers and their teams, improving developer productivity means improving the employee experience, team morale and employee well-being. It means reducing burnout and enabling developers to not only meet product requirements, but to innovate and be creative in their roles.
18 ways to improve developer productivity
There are numerous ways both entire teams and individual developers can be more productive.
How teams can increase developer productivity
Managers can make teams more productive through various approaches to support and enablement.
1. Prioritize DevEx
Developer experience (DevEx) is an important aspect of developer productivity. DevEx is a measure of developers' perception of the amount of support and enablement in their work environment.
The key to developer productivity is facilitating a positive developer experience.
If DevEx is high, developers enjoy the work they do and are more likely to produce high-quality work quickly. If DevEx is low, it's an indication that developers encounter impediments in their day-to-day work and aren't as productive as they could be. There are three main dimensions of DevEx:
Many of the ways organizations can help boost productivity have their roots in facilitating positive DevEx.
Feedback loops. This refers to the speed and quality of responses to actions the developer performs. When developers receive quality feedback fast, they can implement that feedback and course-correct quickly. Slow feedback loops leave developers waiting and might cause interruptions as they switch tasks during that waiting period.
Cognitive load. This refers to the amount of mental effort developers expend trying to complete a given task. Organizations can reduce developers' cognitive load by reducing the amount of context switching in their day-to-day work. Context switching is when the developer must allocate a portion of effort to another task, taking their attention away from the task they want to complete. For example, if a developer must spend time parsing poorly organized documentation or toggling between several environments or toolchains, it distracts from their main task and adds cognitive load.
Flow state. This refers to the state in which a developer is fully involved in the task at hand. Developers in a flow state are likely to be more productive, engage in creative problem-solving, produce higher-quality work and innovate. Organizations can enable flow states by removing impediments, giving developers a level of autonomy over their work, providing clear project goals and encouraging developers to pursue tasks that excite them.
Metrics give teams a way to visualize and articulate their productivity wins and pain points. They are the feedback that ultimately drives improvement. Not every metric or evaluation strategy is right for every team. For example, SPACE (satisfaction and well-being, performance, activity, communication and collaboration, and efficiency and flow) or DORA (DevOps Research and Assessment) metrics are suited to teams that practice DevOps and aren't suited to teams that don't.
In general, a mix of quantitative and qualitative measurements, with a focus on the team over the individual, is an effective way to measure and evaluate performance. Teams should be transparent about their measurement strategy and involve team members in shaping that strategy. Measurements should be context-dependent -- based on a team's workflow, tech stack and skill set.
Goals should be realistic. Set standards, scope, roles and timeline according to project needs and team capability, and then communicate them clearly and consistently. Clear goals and metrics lead to efficient resource allocation.
3. Provide the appropriate resources
Even when teams are configured to perform their best, inadequate tooling can significantly hamper the team's output. Shortening feedback loops can help teams identify which tools are working for teams and where tools can be improved or added, such as in build and test processes or development environment setup. Consider optimizing these tool categories to ensure developers are as productive as they can be:
CI/CD servers that help teams cut back on build and test time.
Use feedback loops to determine where developers get hung up and remove impediments to their productivity. Part of this is reducing the amount of unnecessary meetings. Meeting overkill demonstrates a lack of understanding of developer needs and breaks flow state, which is imperative for developer productivity. Keep daily standups short, and limit ad hoc check-ins as much as possible. Use asynchronous forms of communication for nonurgent updates instead of calls. Use self-service methods, such as documentation portals and internal wikis, to let developers initiate knowledge transfers at their convenience. Consider putting office hours in place so that there are defined boundaries where co-workers can come to in-house specialists for help.
5. Implement efficient workflows
Streamline development workflows so that they minimize the amount of time spent waiting around. Teams can do this by submitting pull requests in smaller increments that don't take as long to review. The developer who submits the pull request does not have to wait as long to get feedback. Also, encourage parallel workflows that let developers and testers pivot to nonconflicting tasks while they wait for others to complete.
QA engineering manager and behavior-driven development expert Gerie Owen explains the value of parallel testing to boost efficiency.
6. Write understandable code
Poorly written code and code comments create technical debt and increase the cognitive load of developers working in the codebase or performing code reviews. To increase productivity in the long run, it helps to write code that's easy to understand and explains itself. Refactor any problem code that forces developers to interpret it as they read and wastes their time. Implement coding standards so that the code developers write starts from a place of readability. Also, take time to design before coding. Properly mapping features before building with pseudocode and flow diagrams can help teams reduce bugs and development cycle time.
Documentation is a sometimes overlooked but crucially important part of developer productivity. Without it, teams spend hours searching for the solutions to problems that could have been clearly described in the docs -- had they existed. Team leaders should prioritize architecture notes, onboarding guides and troubleshooting tips to set teams up for success.
Documentation helps disperse the vital knowledge of expert team members to the rest of the team, reducing bottlenecks. Consider the team members that hold the most information -- the true experts. When they have no way to share that information with others, they are bottlenecks. If they leave, get hit by a bus or are otherwise inaccessible to the rest of the team, their crucial knowledge goes with them. Dedicate specific allotments of time to creating documentation, and use up-to-date onboarding processes to help make sure this knowledge spreads around. Consider pairing developers together -- not only during programming, but during testing and documentation activities as well. When any team member learns something of value, ensure that the rest of the team is cross-trained on that concept, and document it.
Some teams or developers might take well-intentioned steps to improve productivity that ultimately impede it. Tools aimed at deploying code quickly can sometimes result in substandard code that only adds more complexity to the overall system, which teams eventually have to fix or debug. This is technical debt -- when teams make choices now that they have to spend time correcting later. Make tooling and coding choices with the long term in mind so that teams don't have to loop back and fix hard-to-diagnose mistakes from past hasty deployments.
Agile software engineering projects start with sprint planning. Agile teams can boost developer productivity with well-planned sprints, but variables among employees and software users make that planning process easier said than done.
Set an agenda or checklist for Agile sprint planning meetings to reduce disruptions over the course of the project. Agile team members and leaders must understand the project's user stories and what is feasible within the given timelines.
When developers and testers struggle to communicate, stress builds up, and productivity goes down. Team leads should promote collaboration and communication between the two sides. Ultimately, developers and testers both want their input heard on elements such as app design. Try to eliminate any impasses and contention between the two sides.
Reichert explains how and why an IT organization should bridge the gap and restore dev productivity, even when it feels like a big task, and why neither side wants to cede too much control.
11. Use app development tools with AI
Generative AI-powered app development tools create a soupy mix of hype and real promise. AI optimists tout the massive -- sometimes by a factor of 100 -- productivity gains offered by generative AI tools. Pessimists fret the ability to generate substandard code at warp speed and the inability to audit these black box technologies. Regardless of the benefits, both camps can agree that generative AI tools are not going away.
There are AI developer tools that can reduce repetitious coding -- and even boost code quality in the process.
Many experts consider burnout a primary opponent to developer productivity. Developers can only do so much, even as IT organizations increasingly shift QA and security tasks left, meaning into earlier parts of the SDLC.
Journalist George Lawton asked professionals across the software development industry about how to shift left sanely. He explores how developers strike a balance between existing tasks and new responsibilities. Teams can resolve many of these issues with trust and communication.
13. Take up low-code tools
Low-code tools offer professional developers unique productivity benefits.
When developers use low-code tools for dull, time-consuming bits of programming, their productivity improves, as they can spend more time on feature creation. There are many ways IT professionals can use low-code platforms to quickly complete simple or low-importance initiatives, freeing them up for the creative and mission-critical tasks.
Does developer productivity require long hours and a to-do list with a million checked boxes? Hard work and productivity are not synonymous.
Team-building exercises can boost morale, impart new skills and foster collaboration among team members. Activities such as hackathons, game days and Friday projects can boost developer productivity over the long run as much as an additional day of work -- if not more.
Lawton details several successful team-building initiatives that delivered results for IT organizations.
How individual developers can improve productivity
While management works to enable team success, there are steps individuals can take in their own workflows to boost productivity, regardless of the team's effectiveness.
15. Set yourself up for success
Flow is one of the key components of DevEx. Long, unbroken periods of focus are the key to developer productivity. However, it can be difficult to get into flow when programmers don't know where to start or if their goals aren't clear. Developers can manage their work to limit the delays caused by stopping and reacquainting themselves with the project context while starting back up again.
Choose the right place to stop working. The ideal stopping point is right before a challenging task, where the steps to complete it are clear but the potential obstacles to completing them are ambiguous. Clearly write down actionable, concrete steps to complete the task before stopping work that day. In picking up the task the next day, the developer already has momentum and can get into a flow state quickly because they don't have to waste time parsing the ambiguity of the task at hand.
16. Continuously improve
Developer productivity isn't solely about coding skills, but skills do play a role. Developers need to continuously improve their skill set to deliver quality code and value. Skills development serves two functions: It makes the developer more capable in a constantly changing industry, and it improves developer confidence in themselves. Continuous learning gives developers the skills and confidence they need to be more productive.
17. Master the IDE and language
Most tools in a developer's workflow have a collection of keyboard shortcuts and features to speed up productivity. Taking the time to learn these tricks can make a considerable difference in programmer productivity. Even the time spent switching from keyboard to mouse and back again can add up to significant delays.
The same principle applies to programming languages. Instead of sifting through documentation to perform a certain action that isn't yet committed to memory, keep a list of searchable commands and links for those tasks. This keeps reference information within close reach and prevents wasted time on looking up information.
Markdown is one option for keeping these reference documents available. Check out industry expert Damon Garn's list of Markdown tips and tricks.
18. Prioritize and avoid distractions
Developers are inevitably presented with more tasks than they can complete. While it is management's job to try and limit the distractions for developers on their team, productive developers play a part in maintaining their flow state as well.
Learn to say no more often. Don't be distracted by novel technologies when an existing tool works just as well. Don't waste time automating tasks that aren't repeatable. Don't take on midsprint requests when already overcommitted just to please the person requesting them. There are endless drains on a developer's energy, so defining where energy is best spent and sticking to it is an invaluable skill.
Check out development and testing veteran Matt Heusser's guide to soft skills for software developers, with guidance on resiliency, communication and problem-solving.
Editor's note: This article was updated in 2025 to include a host of new productivity tips and to improve the reader experience.
Ben Lutkevich is site editor for Informa TechTarget's SearchSoftwareQuality. Previously, he wrote definitions and features for WhatIs.
Ryan Black is a former assistant site editor for Informa TechTarget, where he edited and produced coverage on software testing, application development and more.
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