Where does the time go?
what do "developers" actually do?
Developer Productivity is a hot topic. Even more so with the advent of Agentic Developer tools. But the interesting thing is - where is the developer spending their time?
Most of their time isn’t actually “coding”. The problem is that a lot of people who are not Developers / Software Engineers / Programmers see the “coding” as the most important part. But really that’s just the mechanism to transfer all the knowledge into the computer so that the needs of the customers / users / consumers / stakeholders / business are meet.
There are countless studies published that outline this - some citing that it’s as low as 9% of a Developers time is actually “coding”. So what does this mean? Where can “productivity” gains occur?
I think often when looking at productivity we miss the point and we frame looking at output. The worry I have is that the drive to use Agentic Developer tools (which I don’t consider are bad at all - and can be incredibly useful) will create a false impression on improving “productivity”.
So when we are involved in Software Product Development - what are we trying to do? Mostly we are trying to solve problems - many problems make up a Software Product.
“Successful problem solving requires finding the right solution to the right problem. We fail more often because we solve the wrong problem.” - Russell L. Ackoff
“You rarely improve an organisation as a whole by improving the performance of one or more of its parts” - Russel L. Ackoff
So improving the “coding” speed of Developers isn’t really touching the sides when it comes to over all improvements of the System. We’ll see teams racing in the wrong direction solving the wrong things. Moving fast and breaking things - the start-up way.
But, what’s really needed is for people in leadership to recognise that “coding” isn’t the main part of a Software Product Developers role. It’s just that translation step. The fundamental part that needs improvement is being able to gather together what’s required to fulfil what’s needed to be done for the product to be a success. And that’s always been the hardest as it involves active collaboration and communication - which is fundamentally human.