Theory Of Constraints: Productivity Metrics in Software Development

In the past, I’ve been a true believer that software development is not really possible to measure from a productivity perspective. I was ignorant, basically. I’m now a bit wiser and I understand that software development is no different than any other product development process. We can and should measure productivity of software developers by understanding that we are building business value via functionality that the end-user wants. So, we should essentially be measuring our progress toward the end user facing functionality (as an over-simplification).

A Paper On The Theory Of Constraints

Several months ago, I wrote up a paper for an internal company effort to help define productivity metrics for software developers. This paper is largely based on the work of David J. Anderson, in “Agile Management For Software Engineering”. It also includes some of my own interpretations and understandings of the Theory of Constraints.

The original intent of this paper was to facilitate the discussion of productivity and metrics in the Development Department at McLane Advanced Technologies, LLC., where I work. I decided to release it to the world, to hopefully help others understand how we can measure productivity as software developers. I did not intend this to be a comprehensive or exhaustive discussion of the points within, but am trying to spur additional research and conversations. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Download The Paper

You can download the PDF here:

The Theory of Constraints: Productivity Metrics In Software Development