In Economics, the definition of productivity is 'how much output can be produced with a given set of inputs'.
In the context of knowledge workers, specifically, those working to design, build, operate and support software, organisations and their leaders should carefully question and consider the purpose and methods of measuring productivity. I refer to this obsession as the productivity trap.
There exist proven and relevant software and product development-specific measures to ensure the right things are being done the right way (efficiency and effectiveness). These measures are significantly more valuable than what often becomes a simplistic measuring of basic output. More importantly the measure of productivity hinges on a single word - output. While outputs are produced, often what matters more are outcomes and how those outcomes are delivered.
More often than not, it doesn't matter how many (productivity) features you build in a day/week/sprint/release if they're not the right features (effectiveness) and don't function correctly (quality)!
This does not mean productivity isn't important, but it's not the most important measure by far.
TIP: If you ask your people to produce timesheets for "internal purposes", it's time to reconsider. Existing strategy, governance and operational leadership processes should drive time (investment) allocation.
An Illustration
A team that is building software (analysis, design, build, testing, release) delivers twelve features in a month. A second team (with identical capacity and capability) delivers only three features in the same month. Based on the definition of productivity, the first team is more productive.
However, the ROI of the first team is only 5%, NPS has fallen as the quality of the product diminished, and the costs of servicing clients and remediation of features and issues soared.
Leadership intervention was required, and a new set of work was thrust upon the team.
The second team progresses onto their next set of experiments and feature (value) delivery with a broad base of highly satisfied clients that have agreed to pay a premium as the product dramatically and positively impacts their business. Their teams' ROI remains high at 42%.
Shared drivers of productivity and efficiency
Ensure leadership capability with relevant skills and knowledge exists to support teams.Enable and support a learning environment and provide expert support in the form of coach-like roles with experience and knowledge of modern delivery approaches and systems thinking. Focus on culture and engagement, clarity and alignment. Ensure leadership conveys a clear strategy and purpose and has a strong focus on execution to outcome over output.Do only what matters and strive to eliminate everything else. Drive automation, quality and efficiency.Although there may be (the elusive) “quick-wins”, be wary of these along with silver bullets.Experiment and use data to improve. Teams work and behave differently in different contexts, so enable autonomy and learning at the team level and support alignment with effective guardrails.
Outputs are still required
setting clear expectations,ensuring capability,clear measurement,high levels of feedback.
Closing
Complex systems of work such as that required to design, build, run and secure software should not be considered through a single-factor lens such as productivity. Often his measure drives negative outcomes for an organisation. There are well known measures that provide insights into team and employee performance, and these should be considered and the work environment designed to support improvement in the underlying metrics.