Top 10 Software Developer Productivity Killers

If you’ve recently found yourself trapped in a catacomb of chaotic code or entangled in a web of woefully unclear requirements, fret not! Bob’s journey through the perilous pitfalls of developer productivity is the adventure you’ve missed. Over the past two weeks, we’ve run a daily series of blog posts about the most prevalent software developer productivity killers we, at Facet Digital, often see in the engineering teams we are hired to assess. Some of these have do to with the technical team and their decisions, and some of them have to do with the business support around them.

Here’s a quick recap:

01	Useless Meetings	Breaking up the Maker’s focus time
02	Open-Plan Offices	Noise and visual distraction disrupt concentration
03	Technical Debt	Short cuts now make innovation take longer later
04	Dead Code	Hours wasted maintaining or searching through garbage
05	Too Many Status Reports	Talking more about work than doing the work
06	Unclear Requirements	Spending too much time guessing at the wrong intent
07	Poor Branching Strategy	Working in too large of chunks and not getting feedback quickly
08	Unrealistic / Arbitrary Deadlines	Demoralizing and stifling creativity
09	Micromanagement	Not letting the brains you hired use their brains to the fullest
10	Poor Documentation	Making the next dev guess and explore without a map

Familiar foes? If these productivity antagonists have been causing chaos in your dev-life, contact us for some superhero assistance.

🙋‍♀️ Encountered another productivity villain we missed? Share in the comments which dastardly devils resonate with you and any others lurking in the shadows!