Characterizing Software Developers by Perceptions of Productivity

Abstract

Understanding developer productivity is important to deliver software on time and at reasonable cost. Yet, there are numerous definitions of productivity and, as previous research found, productivity means different things to different developers. In this paper, we analyze the variation in productivity perceptions based on an online survey with 413 professional software devel-opers at Microsoft. Through a cluster analysis, we identify and describe six groups of developers with similar perceptions of productivity: social, lone, focused, balanced, leading, and goal-oriented developers. We argue why personalized recommendations for improving software developers' work is important and discuss design implications of these clusters for tools to support developers' productivity.