Although much talked about, there has been little research on individual developer productivity (a few studies have used project level data to estimate productivity). One review of studies of employee output variability, found that standard deviation, about the mean, increased from 19% to 48%, as job complexity increased (not software related). Claims of a 28-to-1 productivity difference between developers, is sometimes still bandied about. The, so-called Grant-Sackman study is based on an incorrect interpretation of a summary of their experimental data. The data shows a performance difference of around 6-to-1 between developers using batch vs. online, for creating software; see – and fig .
Research on individual developer productivity remains limited, with only a few studies using project-level data to estimate productivity. A review of studies on employee output variability found that the standard deviation around the mean increased from 19% to 48% as job complexity grew, though this was not specific to software development. The often-cited claim of a 28-to-1 productivity difference among developers is based on a misinterpretation of the Grant-Sackman study. Their data actually shows a performance difference of approximately 6-to-1 between developers using batch versus online methods for software creation, as detailed in their findings.
Despite being frequently discussed, there is limited research focused on individual developer productivity, with only a few studies using project-level data to assess it. One review of research on employee output variability found that the standard deviation around the mean increased from 19% to 48% as job complexity rose, although this was not specific to software development. The often-cited claim of a 28-to-1 productivity disparity between developers is based on a misinterpretation of the Grant-Sackman study's summary. The actual data indicates a performance difference of about 6-to-1 between developers working with batch processing versus online methods for software creation.
Although often cited, there is little research on individual developer productivity, and only a few studies have evaluated it at the project level. One review of studies on variability of employee outputs reported that the standard deviation around the mean increased from 19% to 48% with increasing job complexity, but this was not a software development study. The 28-to-1 productivity gap between developers is a myth based on a misreading of the Grant-Sackman study summary. The real data shows a performance gap of approximately 6-to-1 between developers using batch processing and online software development.
Although it is often talked about, there is little research on individual developer productivity, and only a few studies have used project-level data to measure it. One study of research on employee variability in output found that the standard deviation around the mean increased from 19% to 48% with increasing job complexity, but this was not specific to software development. The frequently-quoted statistic of a 28-to-1 productivity gap between developers is derived from a misreading of the Grant-Sackman summary. The real data shows a performance difference of 6-to-1 between batch processing and online software development.