Re: RE: RE: programmer productivity. -- MIDRANGE-L

If it seems that I am attacking, my apologies. That is NOT my intention 
whatsoever (one word or 3?). Its just that this thread has appearred at just 
the wrong (or should I say right) time. 
My department has just gone through a change of CIO, and the amount of 
paperwork involved in relaying productivity has changed from one sheet once a 
month to 5 different sets of papers/spreadsheets etc weekly and monthly. After 
I had finished allocating my hours as to which departments I had completed work 
for in the past month, I discovered that the final 4 DAYS (almost 40 hours) of 
October was nothing but paperwork/spreadsheets etc showing how productive we 
had been for the month of October. I had just been shaking my head on this 
fact, when I heard rumors of collecting the number of lines of coding as a 
measurement. Then this thread started.
So forgive me my rant. No attack was intended, just me blowing my top, or parts 
of my body there of.  

>>> "Richard Jackson" <richardjackson@richardjackson.net> 11/10 11:39 AM >>>
Alan:

I can find no end of documents to show that no other productivity-measuring
system offers a substantial advantage over LOC.  Note, I am not saying that
LOC is good only that nothing else is much better.

One does not compare LOC across languages.  As you pointed out, that is a
silly idea.

Since you have attacked LOC is such an "involved" way, would you like to
suggest a method that you believe will work better so that we may attack
you?

<bg> (I'm not very committed to this discussion)

Measuring productivity is a pretty silly idea too.  If you believe that you
can measure productivity using a simple technique that is easy to understand
then you also believe that programmers perform mechanical work and that they
should be a commodity item.  Good luck filling programming positions.  If
you are willing to accept that the job is complex and technical then you
must also accept that the measurement technique will be complex (subject to
interpretation) and you will not understand what the programmer is doing.
When you don't understand it, at least part of the time the measurements
will not make sense.

The OP should monitor each fix through its lifetime.  Fixes move through
stages defined by a process model.  Status reporting identifies where each
work order is in the process.  Allow management to understand how long each
stage should take and how long it actually did take.

Richard Jackson
Richard Jackson and Associates Ltd.
IBM Business Partner
mailto:richardjackson@richardjackson.net 
http://www.richardjacksonltd.com 
Telephone: 1 (303) 808-8058


-|-----Original Message-----
-|From: owner-midrange-l@midrange.com 
-|[mailto:owner-midrange-l@midrange.com]On Behalf Of alan shore
-|Sent: Friday, November 10, 2000 10:15 AM
-|To: MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com 
-|Subject: Re: RE: programmer productivity.
-|
-|
-|I hope I understand what you are writing here, otherwise I am
-|definitley showiwing what an idiot I am.
-|I completely disagree. Lines of Code is probably THE worst way of
-|charting someones performance. Granted RPG (as-of-now, anyway) is
-|of a fixed format. But what about free-format RPG, free-format
-|COBOL, free-format UNIX etc. etc.. One mans line of code becomes
-|another mans 4/5 lines of code. Does this mean that programmer B
-|is 4/5 times more productive than programmer A.
-|The responses of go back to the bean-counters and ask what they
-|use to measure their productivity has to be the best answer.
-|I am curious as to what reply was received. Plus, ask them why do
-|they want to measure a programmers productivity anyway.
-|
-|>>> "Richard Jackson" <richardjackson@richardjackson.net> 11/10
-|9:04 AM >>>
-|About 15 years ago, I spent a bunch of time looking at this
-|problem.  I also
-|did a presentation at Common about it.  At that time, no system of
-|measurement produced better fidelity than lines of code (LOC).  LOC is
-|flawed because its scope is narrow and its definition contains serious
-|flaws.  In order to heal the definition problem, one must account for the
-|effect of complexity on LOC.
-|
-|Richard Jackson
-|Richard Jackson and Associates Ltd.
-|IBM Business Partner
-|mailto:richardjackson@richardjackson.net 
-|http://www.richardjacksonltd.com 
-|Telephone: 1 (303) 808-8058
-|
-|
-|-|-----Original Message-----
-|-|From: owner-midrange-l@midrange.com 
-|-|[mailto:owner-midrange-l@midrange.com]On Behalf Of Gary R. Patterson
-|-|Sent: Friday, November 10, 2000 2:36 AM
-|-|To: MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com 
-|-|Subject: RE: programmer productivity.
-|-|
-|-|
-|-|Lots of ways to measure programmer productivity.  A few ideas:
-|-|
-|-|Developers: Lines of code vs. defects in produced code.
-|-|Developers: Performance to project timelines vs. defects.
-|-|Developers: Performance to task estimate vs. defects.  Really needs
-|-|standardized estimates.
-|-|Maintenance programmers:  Number of fixes (weighted for complexity) vs.
-|-|defects in fixed code.
-|-|
-|-|Subjective measurements, too: Code review, standards
-|compliance, peer and
-|-|supervisor performance evaluation.
-|-|
-|-|Of course, you have to measure non-coding tasks, too.  Some of the above
-|-|metrics apply.
-|-|
-|-|1) Start tracking defects, and charge them to the responsible
-|-|individual or
-|-|team.  (Have security walk you to the car for the first week or two.)
-|-|2) Implement detailed time reporting.  (Watch out for mail that ticks.)
-|-|3) Implement code reviews (good idea anyway).  Standard
-|criteria, rotating
-|-|responsibility.  Check for standards compliance.  (This way you
-|-|can share a
-|-|little of the heat with your senior staff.)
-|-|4) Implement an estimating methodology.  (Big fun.  Nothing
-|like a rousing
-|-|afternoon of function-point counting.)
-|-|5) Start tracking performance to estimate and performance to timeline.
-|-|(Avoid food and beverages that are not prepared in your presence.)
-|-|
-|-|Enjoy.  Might actually even improve productivity and quality, if you can
-|-|manage it effectively.
-|-|
-|-|Gary R. Patterson
-|-|
-|-|
-|-|
-|-|-----Original Message-----
-|-|From: owner-midrange-l@midrange.com 
-|-|[mailto:owner-midrange-l@midrange.com]On Behalf Of midrange
-|-|Sent: Thursday, November 09, 2000 1:29 PM
-|-|To: MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com 
-|-|Subject: Re: programmer productivity.
-|-|
-|-|
-|-|I have been ask by accountants to provide them with a way to measure our
-|-|programmers productivity.
-|-|
-|-|
-|-|I know what I think is productive. fast accurate turnaround on projects.
-|-|
-|-|does anyone one else have any comments.
-|-|
-|-|thank you jeff grace
-|-|
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