
Ask HN: How do you measure a developers 'performance'? - doorknobguy
My boss always asks for &#x27;a number, any number&#x27; to show how the team is doing.<p>It makes sense since every other department has numbers to back their performance but it&#x27;s tough to put one together for the engineering team.<p>Before you say &quot;trusting your team is enough&quot; ... it&#x27;s really not.. My team trusts one another but its no replacement for having concrete data to:<p>1. Show the larger org
2. Help us improve internally
3. See the effects of our changes<p>Any suggestions?
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uberman
Measuring developer productivity is notoriously difficult. No two tasks are
the same, have the same scope or same pre-defined requirements. There seems to
be lots of "bad ways" so I recommend if you need to measure "something" to
pick a metric that you feel you want to improve and measure it. Your staff
will naturally adjust to improve want is measured.

I want to challenge your assertion that every other department has numbers to
back their performance. I am skeptical this is true. I don't image HR can
bring a meaningful set of numbers to the table demonstrating month to month or
quarterly improvement.

