Written instructions are forgotten or worse, misinterpreted overtime. Working longer hours encourages bad programming habits. In industries other than the software industry, productivity measurement is a normal activity that drives the success of a company. On the contrary, we believe and the experience of many software developers shows that extended hours for short periods. Impact of overtime on electrical labor productivity. For example, if the company has a spike in sales, people have to work harder to deliver on the promises they are selling. Jan 09, 20 software development is rife with overtime. For agile teams, working overtime is bad in so many ways it is hard to count them all. Pdf impact of overtime and stress on software quality. The better the software development community becomes at creating software, the more software the world seems to demand. Yes, thats a near certainty in software development, however. You could try leaving a copy of rapid software development by mcconnell on his desk or his. Overtime does not increase productivity as much as it increases cost.
My previous post on working smarter, not harder already discussed the main premise of the book. In some organizations, overtime is worked in response to breakdowns or emergency work. Driven by passion and perfectionism, many developers throw everything into it, reveling in a culture of coding in darkened rooms late at night. Working more than 50 hours makes you less productive. One study even found that a 10percent increase in overtime reduces productivity by 2. Less stress means low defects and indirectly less wrangling with the qa. There is no personal bonus or incentive to work more than that no overtime. After reading some books about project and team management i have discovered that most project are managed using the spanish theory. The relationship between hours worked and productivity. My original article really wasnt intended to cover all softwaredevelopment projects.
The cost will be downtime and decreased productivity or worse, replacing smart. Overtime scheduling of extended work days or weeks exceeding a standard eighthour work day or 40. Im primarily concerned with overtime for software development organizations. Although its earliest measurement was in lines of code per manhours worked, a better definition is the ratio between the functional value of software produced to the labor and expense of producing it. Though the initial workflow may seem productive, it subsequently takes its toll on the person, both physically and. It is better to get a grasp on the real issues of what is causing a schedule slippage and address those problems. A primer for the construction industry was developed to assist construction contractors, their customers, and others involved in construction projects in determining the costs associated with unplanned events, circumstances, and factors that may impact the outcome, productivity, and schedule of those projects. If youre looking to get more out of your organisations software developers, increase your roi, spend less money on fixing bugs or increase your development teams business value release rate, this session is for you. Although to our knowledge no indepth research has been done to discover the relationship between productivity and hours worked in software development, substantial anecdotal evidence suggests that the results found in other fields are also valid in this one. Simple productivity measures worked fairly well for well defined, repetitive manufacturing processes where a 10% increase in input reliably translates to a comparable increase in output, but there are massive problems with applying simple productivity measures to complex, nonrepetitive design processes like software development.
The problem of measuring software productivity qsm slim. Employment of software developers is projected to grow 21 percent from 2018 to 2028, much faster than the average for all occupations. But, the negative effects it has on productivity and quality can be observed in any. So i think sometimes overtime is unavoidable and reasonable. The term sustainable pace, more general, was proposed by kent beck himself in replacement of the original 40 hour week denomination for this extreme programming practice. In order to meet this objective, a monte carlo simulation model of variability and continuous deterioration of labor productivity during scheduled overtime of labor productivity during scheduled overtime was developed. The workplace stack exchange is a question and answer site for members of the workforce navigating the professional setting. Overtime is something of a given in todays software development world. Overtime is a good way to gauge the cost and output of individual employees, though consideration of context is important for this productivity metric. Much analysis has been done to determine the correlation between software function points lines of code and work. A look at whether it is normal to expect software developers to work on weekends and. How can software developer say no to overtime without.
Note that there are various methods to measure software size. Overtime is a sign of problems that should never receive praise. The unintended consequences of common productivity tactics. It was coined by fred brooks in his 1975 book the mythical manmonth. Sometimes its due to tight deadlines for projects, or lastminute software needs when a. Why software developers are exempt from overtime rules in. However, there are some obviously broken concepts such as overtime that should be put to rest. From a schedule, cost, and quality perspective, excessive overtime has an effect, too.
Basil vandegriends website on professional software development. How to increase software developer productivity speaker deck. They have found a way to achieve the right combination of curiosity, selftalk, charisma, and selfassurance, probably with a. But e mployers should probably start politely declining the free. Despite starting strong during week one of crunch mode your output was noticeably higher than a standard week over the following weeks your output dipped a little at a time, until you ended up doing less work over ten hours than you would over. However, in software development, project overtime as opposed to bad production problem overtime almost always results from a team getting behind rather than being driven to get ahead.
Getting past burnout, busywork, and the myth of total efficiency. You might increase productivity in the very short term, but the productivity lost after the deadline has been met is a great cost. So, a study correlating accidents with hours worked has merit. According to brooks, there is an incremental person who, when added to a project, makes it take more, not less time. They work overtime when its appropriate, and work always to maximize productivity week in and week out. N2 this article examines the impacts of overtime on construction labor productivity, and consequently costs, for mechanical and electrical contractors.
Essays on software engineering is a book on software engineering and project management by fred brooks first published in 1975, with subsequent editions in 1982 and 1995. How to reduce overtime actitime time tracking software. Jun 11, 2010 overtime is something of a given in todays software development world. Its central theme is that adding manpower to a late software project makes it later. Demanding overtime is not a solution to a software schedule problem. The micro approach is used to analyze projects that utilize a fixed overtime schedule, such as 5x10 or 6x10 throughout a certain number of weeks. As one final note, we do not mean to suggest that crunch mode and extended hours can never be productive in software development. Overtime is killing your productivity dejan fajfar. In development, for example, it isnt possible to work 60 hours a week on a regular basis and show great results. Avoiding excessive overtime in software development kev. Brookss law is an observation about software project management according to which adding manpower to a late software project makes it later. Top 10 productivity metrics for software development. Impact of overtime on construction labor productivity.
Simulation analysis of labor performance during overtime and. After as little as 4 weeks of overtime, productivity can go negative. But today that isnt sufficientshipping software that works but doesnt create value is not a good measure. In between, it could go through testing, qa, and staging, depending on your organization. I satisfy them in exchange for the flexibility that i want from them. In the world of software development, cramming is nothing new. This continues until all tasks are developed or until schedule pressure drops below 1. In software development, 2 factors are used to measure productivity. Does all of that overtime really lead to more productivity. Extreme programming xp is built on 12 key practices.
Overtime and productivity in electrical construction. The agile mindset views recourse to overtime, other than on an exceptional basis, as detrimental to productivity rather than enhancing it. Worklife balance and overtime in the tech industry. Mar, 2011 burnout can lead to omissions and errors, project rework and scrapped work, team member frustration, customer dissatisfaction, and an overall solution that isnt what the customer wants. Producing software requires an environment conducive to concentration and measured work. Overtime is a flexibility that my company and my manager want from me. Feb 23, 2017 the software industry is known for its hack workers who pull all nighters. Is there any impact loss of productivity due to overtime. Software development is high pressure, susceptible to sudden market changes, and lacks an institutional memory of labour negotiations.
Theres always too much work to be done on software projects, too many. Software productivity is a deceptively simple concept, but a matter of some debate. Past research studies concluded that placing workers on scheduled overtime reduces labor productivity. Plan for an equivalent reduction in productivity immediately afterwards. A recent circadian study addressed productivity in white collar workers. A simple way to prevent selfinflicted overtime is to increase pay for standard office hours. Sep 28, 2018 im primarily concerned with overtime for software development organizations.
In this paper several projects are presented with varying degrees of overtime where the resultant quality of. All of these can lead to lower productivity and project failure. It discusses the various ways of measuring software size and project effort using examples from past research. Less stress to software engineer results in more productivity. Here are the 7 abilities that an efficient team leader in software development must have. The quote that companies whose turnover places them in the best third of the sample are experiencing less than half the turnover loss of those in the worst third is not actually refering to the quality of the companies all it is doing is demostrating the wide variance in turnover. The most common approach to schedule acceleration is the use of overtime. One hundred fifty years of research proves that shorter work hours raise productivity and profits, and overtime destroys them. Team can use overtime tactically to meet nearby deadlines. As a result, its common to expect programmers to work long hours to get more done.
In the economics of overtime working, robert hart, labor economist and professor of economics at the university of stirling in scotland, united kingdom, presents comprehensive theoretic studies on overtime work and how it. There are many ways to lift software developers productivity and, as a result, the. Some employees working with computers can be exempt from overtime pay, but not software developers after a rule change years ago. Software engineering and development is wellknown to suffer from unplanned overtime, which causes stress and illness in engineers and can lead to poor quality software with higher defects. I have been working as a software developer for 10 years and i never asked. Scheduling software solutions, such as staffright omni from loki systems, feature a callin list with customizable parameters to help you quickly select the most costeffective solution for shift coverage. Apr 14, 2006 the xp practice sustainable pace suggests that the team should work at a pace which produces a steady flow of results, sustained indefinitely. I have discovered that it is an extremely bad thing. They found that even as little as a ten percent increase in work hours could result in a 2. Automation to drive software development productivity. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time. To use the data in all the different lifecycle methodologies in the. Or you might be a software developer looking to lift your game to the next level. At its most basic the need for overtime reflects a breakdown in professionalism, priorities, and agility.
In agile development, on the other hand, there are multiple pressure peaks toward the end of the iterations rather than one large peak toward the end of the project. I originally made this change in schedule in order to spend more time with my young son. Apr 18, 2017 the best metrics for measuring software development productivity and efficiency are committodeploy time cdt. Working software is the primary measure of progress. Although this metric is not always a direct indicator of the maintenance programs effectiveness, it can still be helpful. By working overtime, the team increases its productivity. Developers are likely to both work longer hours and take shortcuts to get something out the door. My programmers dont like working more than 40 hours a week. To mitigate the bad effects of long overtime on software development projects, several overtime management strategies. This is the time it takes for the code to go from committing to deploy. Measuring and improving software development productivity.
This study presents the results of a statistical analysis of productivity data collected from several projects that used a variety of overtime scheduling techniques. Five tips for improving software development efficiency forbes. And there are some practical ideas like small team sizes that offer a big boost for relatively little effort. However, demarco writes compelling arguments on other issues, one of which is overtime. Coupled with customers pushing for more or larger deliverables with fewer staff and a legal exemption from overtime pay in many circumstances, developers. Theres always a business need and desire for more results.
Five tips for improving software development efficiency. Strategies to manage overtime more effectively loki systems. A week or two of overtime can help to get past a hurdle, but continued reliance on overtime will lead to even greater problems downstream. Although there is a large body of research about measuring and investigating productivity from an organizational point of view, there is a paucity of research about how software developers, those at the frontline of software. This metric is essential for analyzing worker productivity and effectiveness within the maintenance organization. Defects are very disruptive to software development. But, the negative effects it has on productivity and quality can be observed in any context. Oct 31, 2014 the book improving software development productivity contains practices, models and case studies to quantitatively support adoption of agile software development.
This idea is known as brooks law, and is presented along with the secondsystem effect and advocacy of prototyping. Lets start with the most common productivity boosting strategy, overtime. Although several research efforts have studied the effect of overtime on labor efficiency, these studies have unknown data sources and were conducted many years previously. Overtime in this research is defined as the hours worked beyond the typical 40hours scheduled per week. Software productivity can be defined as the ratio between the functional values of software produced to the efforts and expense required for development. The ultimate goal of tracking and leveraging software metrics is increasing productivity in software development. But our empirical work with international truck and.
The objective of this research is to quantify the anticipated impact of labor productivity during scheduled overtime on total project duration. Overtime is not only about productivity, for example, if you work 12 hours per day, at end your will left that job, and replace an developer is an really high cost an good programmer is not productive in a new job until 6 month, at least other example, if all programmers does not do overtime at the same level, in longor not so long term. Apr 22, 2014 overtime is a major variable that impacts labor units. Software developers will be needed to respond to an increased demand for computer software. The success of a software development project does not only rely on technical support but also depends on human and social factors. This effectively means that productivity during 60 hour weeks would be less than twothirds that of what it was when 40 hour weeks were worked. For example, one area where overtime can be managed more effectively is when filling an unscheduled absence. The best metrics to measure the productivity of your software development are the metrics that you use to measure the business results. To determine the impacts of overtime on productivity, will be analyzed against three literatures ever studied the relationship between overtime on productivity. Unfortunately, voluntary overtime is out of formal timesheets. The xp practice sustainable pace suggests that the team should work at a pace which produces a steady flow of results, sustained indefinitely. This chapter explains what software development productivity is and why it is important.