Why Is It Important to Be Prodcutive at Work 

The productivity trend has been steadily observed over the past few years. Productivity presupposes well-defined workflow processes, successful teamwork, and work-life balance. As the IT industry succeeds in high-speed evolution, it has become challenging for software development engineers to stay on top of things and remain productive. Developers’ productivity means that task execution is equal to task estimation. In this article, we uncover the causes of low productivity and give some pieces of advice on how to motivate and boost the software development engineer’s productivity.

What Causes Low Productivity in the Workplace

Why do some developers work less productively? What causes low productivity of developers? These questions became urgent due to the fast-paced IT environment and the developer’s desire to fit in working productively. Here are some answers. 

Poor Teamwork 

The IT industry is about teamwork; getting the project requirements, identifying team members separate roles and planning the backlog of tasks together. Before every sprint planning, backlog refinement needs to be done. Backlog refinement includes refining, estimating and ordering tasks in the project backlog. It is generally accepted to estimate sprint tasks with the story points as they include three main components: the amount of work, complexity and risk or uncertainty in performing tasks. Poor teamwork provokes bad productivity and low number of deliverables estimated in story points.

Client Change Request

Almost all IT companies have faced the challenge of a change request from clients. It can happen at different stages of the project implementation. The agile approach envisages changes, so it won’t be a problem if a client asks for some minor edits. It will be a great challenge for the team if he asks for something that is not a part of backlog planning. This significant change request demands time, approval, analysis, finances, deadline shift, and developer efforts who may already feel unmotivated after facing such a challenge. 

Unclear Tasks and Bad Estimation

Unclear descriptions of tasks cause inaccurate estimations. Thus, the software development team fails in proper user stories estimation. Every story must be estimated using relative sizing not to slide back into traditional waterfall principles. For example, estimation with story points applying the Fibonacci sequence or any other things the team may want to use is more effective.  Story points and sprint velocity provide information about the tasks to be completed in the coming sprints. Setting clear tasks and their proper estimation are important as without doing these, the team does not see any movements towards the finish line of the project and can not work productively. 

Work-Life Imbalance

The balance between work and personal life is incredibly important in modern realities. A developer strives to fulfil potential in all spheres of their life. When boundaries between work and personal life are violated, a software development engineer may become stressed, suffer from professional burnout and lead to further problems in their career and at home. For companies, this means one thing – financial and personnel losses. There are several reasons why developers feel stressed: constant team calls, tight deadlines, changes in requirements, etc. Can such an employee work productively?

How To Motivate Developers and Boost Productivity

Here are some proven strategies that may help to motivate and boost developer productivity, and as a plus, keep the business operating at peak efficiency.

Following Best Practices 

One of the best-proven ways to increase productivity among software development teams is working in sprints. Project management technologies like agile are an efficient and time-effective way to software development. Scrum ceremonies are important elements of agile methodology. They provide the framework for the team to work in a structured manner, encourage team members to collaborate productively and achieve better results. Boards are used to visualize agile approaches. They allow making the workflow open and understandable for all specialists. Some of the most recommended tools for creating boards are Jira and Asana.

Putting Work into Effective Communication

It is vital to protect developers’ time from unnecessary interruptions because their time is very precious. First, establish a communication protocol with the team from the start, encouraging team members to be concise and polite in their statements. The next step is introducing a quick daily meeting (15-20 minutes) during which software development engineers can discuss current tasks and synchronize efforts. Developers can use Skype or Slack for instant messaging. All of these save time and provide the opportunity to work productively.

Tracking Progress Even if a Project Doesn’t Require This 

Tracking and awareness of progress allow software development engineers to stay focused on their tasks and prioritize activities. Sticking to the agile approach allows developers to measure their progress on an ongoing basis and the client, in turn, keeps actual track of the changes. Constant team involvement and responsibility for the overall result are the backgrounds of productivity. It is useful to minimize distractions while working using headphones, and online apps which monitor the time a developer spends on applications and websites or even block websites irrelevant to a workplace. 

Continuous Education, Like Training, Collaboration with Peers, Professional Events

“Once you stop learning, you start dying” (Albert Einstein)

Keeping skills up-to-date is crucial in the IT industry. Tech conferences and events provide the opportunity to develop, progress, and tackle the challenges of tomorrow. Providing training also plays a big role, as developers become more competent and professional, they can greatly contribute to future projects. And last but not least, collaboration with other developers allows learning and developing the most current skillset.

Infinity Technologies supports the professional development of employees. We provide training, visit professional events, for example, UP2IT, and support collaboration. We have a tradition to conduct meetings where developers can share their knowledge and discuss projects.

Work-Life Balance

Work-life balance is the key to the developer’s productivity. Software development engineers who manage to balance these two important areas of life are less stressed, more productive and motivated. 

Infinity Technologies helps take care of our employees work-life balance. Let’s consider how we do it:

• providing the opportunity for employees to work remotely;
• making a convenient work schedule;
• trying to minimize overtime work;
• conducting training in time management;
• treating with understanding any employee absence due to unforeseen or ongoing personal problems;
• providing a leisure zone to keep fit, play chess or just relax.

Summing Up

We can summarize our advice on how to boost tech talents’ productivity: integrating the agile approach, establishing a communication protocol and quick daily meetings, providing continuous education for developers, and taking care of employee work-life balance. When thinking about productivity, we should never forget about the human factor. 

If you need productive and motivated developers for your project, contact our consultants — we know how to staff projects.