Except you haven't explained it at all. Sackman, Erickson, and Grant found that some developers were able to complete what was effectively a programming contest in a 10th of the time of the slowest participants. This is the origin of the 10x developer idea.
You, on the other hand, are claiming that 10x engineers are 10 times more productive than the worst engineers. Completing a programming challenge in a 10th of the time is not the same as being 10 times more productive, and obviously your usage can't be an explanation, even as one you made up on the spot, as the math doesn't add up.
That was designed as a repeatable experiment, which seems entirely reasonable when you want to conduct a study. Why are you characterising that as “a programming contest”? That seems like an uncharitably distorted way of describing a study.
> Why are you characterising that as “a programming contest”?
Because it was? Do you have a better way to repeatedly test performance? And yes, the study's intent was to look at performance, not productivity. It's even right in the title. Not sure where you dreamed up the latter.
i believe the original was for an entire "organizations" performance, and was also done in 1977. Since they are averages, It makes "sense" to conclude that the best of a good team is 10x better than the average of the worst team. Not really what the experimwnt concludes but what can you do.
