AAAAAAAAAH! Productivity in a Time of COVID

@arthurdoler Arthur Doler Resources: Boring details about me are at
https://arthurdoler.com Slides will be posted on my Twitter post-conference

@arthurdoler Not pictured: the other 364 dumpster fires

@arthurdoler him a l’il angry boi

@arthurdoler Not, as it turns out, experiments performed by raccoons

@arthurdoler Not that people don’t have a lot of opinions
normally.

@arthurdoler tbf, talking about the biases of a survey like
this would take all day

@arthurdoler Data available at: http://bit.ly/productivity-survey

@arthurdoler “I find it easier to focus on the task
at hand when working from home.” “Personal productivity increased.” “I was able to maintain my professional productivity while also strengthening my personal productivity.” Data available at: http://bit.ly/productivity-survey

@arthurdoler “Team cohesion and getting help from each other is
still more difficult, coming from an office that was heavily in-person.” “Group productivity decreased.” “I used to think I would love to work from home all the time but I do miss the small interactions and being in the same room as someone.” Data available at: http://bit.ly/productivity-survey

@arthurdoler A good question.

@arthurdoler An even better question!

@arthurdoler The duality of existence - cookies and trees

@arthurdoler Ask me about my time working in a Nabisco
subcontractor someday.

@arthurdoler Getting’ all Econ 101 up in here

@arthurdoler Cue the Monty Python skit…

@arthurdoler Safety equipment generally encouraged for this step

@arthurdoler Creamsicle beret… ♫

@arthurdoler Not a tape measure long enough

@arthurdoler As it turns out, also an abridged history of
work

@arthurdoler FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE, NURSE & STATISTICIAN Lady of the Lamp
and Innovator of the Infographic 1855-1856

@arthurdoler Florence Nightingale, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

@arthurdoler FREDERICK PHISTERER, HERO & STATISTICIAN Moustache and Medal Bearer
1861-1865

@arthurdoler ,Frederick Phisterer, Statistical record of the armies of the
United States (via Internet Archive)

@arthurdoler FREDERICK WINSLOW TAYLOR, THE FIRST MANAGEMENT CONSULTANT The Man
I Love To Hate 1911-1926

@arthurdoler By M. W. Toews - Own work, based (in
concept) on figure by Jeremy Kemp, on 2005-02-09, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1903871

@arthurdoler W. EDWARDS DEMING Seemingly-Forgotten Hero of Reform 1950s- 1960s

@arthurdoler

@arthurdoler THE DAWN OF THE CUBICLE Advancements in Modula Resource-Containing
Productivity Units 1970s- 1980s

@arthurdoler THE AGE OF JIRA The Domination of Metrics and
the Salting of the Earth 2000s- Now

@arthurdoler WE TYPICALLY CALL THESE MEASURES “METRICS” As in “a
system or standard of measurement.”

@arthurdoler THINGS WE HAVE USED AS METRICS LOC Velocity Tickets
Completed Sprints Finished …AND MORE There’s a pattern here…

@arthurdoler The measuring of countable things!

@arthurdoler Literally comparing apples to oranges here

@arthurdoler Leaping to conclusions, as it were

@arthurdoler Name That Measurement!

@arthurdoler WHAT’S IN THE BOX?!

@arthurdoler SOFTWARE IS A GENERAL PURPOSE TECHNOLOGY Question: Is the
GPT3 a GPT? Discuss.

@arthurdoler The spoiler for the chariot was backordered

@arthurdoler I’m pretty happy about this one

@arthurdoler This is a frustrating device to draw

@arthurdoler GPTs can enable other GPTs, too

@arthurdoler SOFTWARE DOES NOT EXIST FOR ITSELF, IT EXISTS FOR
A PURPOSE “Can code be art” is a wholly different presentation.

@arthurdoler For all varying levels of automation

@arthurdoler Maybe while causing other problems

@arthurdoler Messaging – the original “killer app”

@arthurdoler The $1,000,000,000 question for any software developer

@arthurdoler Always keep an eye out for J-curves, too

@arthurdoler Hopefully it was *someone*.

@arthurdoler Or, neither. Neither is a valid option, too.

@arthurdoler The motley-est of crews

@arthurdoler What, did you think I was going to show
it? This isn’t National Geographic.

@arthurdoler There are some other metaphors hiding here

@arthurdoler Bikeshedding Resume-driven development Mismanagement of technical debt Spite-driven development
happens for different reasons

@arthurdoler Big thanks to Yvonne Lam (@yvonnezlam) for letting me
snip this tweet!

@arthurdoler https://slate.com/technology/2021/04/elis-uscis-digital-immigration-system.html

@arthurdoler Basements staffed with contractors tasked with … unsticking cases
that were caught up accidentally due to a faulty ELIS algorithm were filled to overflowing… https://slate.com/technology/2021/04/elis-uscis-digital-immigration-system.html

@arthurdoler One … noted that a large portion of her
day was occupied by undoing what ELIS had automated for her. “I spend three and a half hours every morning un-assigning the cases that don’t have evidence and going through the ones that do,” she told researchers... https://slate.com/technology/2021/04/elis-uscis-digital-immigration-system.html

@arthurdoler “They had the idea that they needed to get
off paper, but they had all sorts of expectations about why—what they would accomplish by getting off of paper—and it wasn’t clear what the priorities were or how they were going to actually link getting off of paper to accomplishing those particular benefits,” Schwartz said.” https://slate.com/technology/2021/04/elis-uscis-digital-immigration-system.html

@arthurdoler Coding to minimize shortcuts blocked is “prairie-dog style”

@arthurdoler The Developers of the Large Round Table with Beanbag
Chairs

@arthurdoler THIS INCREASES OWNERSHIP AND ENGAGEMENT IN THE STUFF YOU
ARE BUILDING If you provide the necessary autonomy

@arthurdoler “Tempus fugit,” as they say

@arthurdoler This slide is great out of context

@arthurdoler Everyone in this scene is confused

@arthurdoler YOU CAN’T RELY ON USAGE NUMBERS ALONE Even if
it’s what your investors want to see.

@arthurdoler “YOU GET WHAT YOU MEASURE” Richard Hamming, The Art
of Doing Science and Engineering

@arthurdoler You can’t succeed unless you know how they succeed

@arthurdoler THAT REQUIRES: Understanding the problem that the user has
Creativity and innovation to arrive at the solutions to those problems Uh oh, someone said “creativity”…

@arthurdoler Requires a whole extra bit to represent that amount
in his universe

@arthurdoler Time Preparation / Learning Gathering / Attributing Cziksentmihalyi, Creativity:
Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention

@arthurdoler Levi, 2017

@arthurdoler Cannon-Bowers et al., 1995; Cohen & Bailey, 1997

@arthurdoler tfw it takes you 35 minutes to get from
the fridge to your desk

@arthurdoler An accurate depiction of what the last year has
felt like

@arthurdoler IN A REMOTE-WORK SCENARIO, EVERY INTERACTION NEEDS TO BE
INTENTIONAL This is why your calendars are filled up.

@arthurdoler INTENTIONALITY ALLOWS GREATER PARTICIPATION… IF YOU LET IT Especially
for various sorts of neurodiverse folks.

@arthurdoler Every presentation can use a good meme

@arthurdoler Saves us energy by maintaining a model of the
world Quick answers with little effort Kahneman, Thinking Fast and Slow; Tsipursky, The Blind Spots Between Us

@arthurdoler Costs energy to use More accurate Avoids many cognitive
biases Kahneman, Thinking Fast and Slow;Tsipursky, The Blind Spots Between Us

@arthurdoler My, what big stack traces you have!

@arthurdoler Tsipursky, The Blind Spots Between Us; see also, your
life

@arthurdoler Triplett, 1898

@arthurdoler WE ABSOLUTELY CANNOT MEASURE THE BENEFITS OF A TEAM
SIMPLY VIA NAÏVE PRODUCTIVITY If it were that simple, we would stop inventing new metrics and methods

@arthurdoler This is more true the more users you have

@arthurdoler Get ready for it…

@arthurdoler WE NEED TO BE GATHERING QUALITATIVE MEASUREMENTS, NOT JUST
QUANTITATIVE Those words are too dang close to each other

@arthurdoler OUR ENTIRE HISTORY OF PRODUCTIVITY IS ON A QUANTITATIVE
MEASURING SCALE STEM has a huge quantitative bias, ironically enough

@arthurdoler Don’t @ me about the Red Delicious, it’s a
garbage tier apple

@arthurdoler Only getting half of the story

@arthurdoler I know this feeling very well.

@arthurdoler QUALITATIVE MEASUREMENTS LET US MEASURE THINGS YOU CANNOT MEASURE
QUANTITATIVELY Anything that isn’t a number

@arthurdoler 1) SEND A BROAD SURVEY TO YOUR USERS ABOUT
THEIR USES AND GOALS Make sure you’re gathering from a proper sample set of users

@arthurdoler 2) FOLLOW-UP WITH DETAILED USER INTERVIEWS TO GLEAN SPECIFICS
OF THOSE USES AND GOALS There’s a lot of UX references on how to do this

@arthurdoler 3) IDENTIFY TRENDS, KEYWORDS, CATEGORIES, AND OUTLIERS BASED ON
THE DETAILED INTERVIEWS This involves a lot of context and nuance and is best done manually

@arthurdoler 4) PROFIT! … Theoretically! 4) FIND THE WHY! 4)
PROFIT!

@arthurdoler Another good question, thank you.

@arthurdoler This talk has a lot of electricity in it

@arthurdoler The original question, back again.

@arthurdoler PEOPLE FEEL MORE PRODUCTIVE BECAUSE: A lack of the
social costs of a team mean you can achieve a higher productivity – if you’re measuring it naïvely More autonomy over their environment / schedule This list is not exhaustive, just representative

@arthurdoler PEOPLE FEEL LESS PRODUCTIVE BECAUSE: Creative work requires explicit
and constant intentionality, which is draining Every attempt to pay social costs must also be intentional and usually requires a virtual meeting This list is not exhaustive, just representative

@arthurdoler PEOPLE WORK DIFFERENTLY AND THEIR SITUATIONS ARE DIFFERENT Always
a good thing to remember.

@arthurdoler *gestures wildly at Everything*

@arthurdoler Here’s the part with the takeaways

@arthurdoler Single contributor, team member, whatever

@arthurdoler Take time to understand what it is you are
writing, and why Don’t think of productivity simply as a count of completed work over time Try to center the user in your thoughts tl;dr – slow down and think a little more

@arthurdoler Either official or unofficial

@arthurdoler Advocate for taking the time to understand the value
of the solution you’re proposing Push for capturing the complexities of your team’s generated value as qualitative data Build intentionality into your team’s paying down of team social costs – whether your team is remote or not tl;dr – don’t over-focus on quantitative data because it’s easy to collect

@arthurdoler NO MATTER WHO YOU ARE, DON’T BEAT YOURSELF UP
FOR THINGS OUTSIDE YOUR CONTROL This is the most important one, though

@arthurdoler Arthur Doler My website is probably still https://arthurdoler.com Resources:
Slides will be posted on my Twitter post-conference

AAAAAAAAAH! Productivity in a Time of COVID

AAAAAAAAAH! Productivity in a Time of COVID

More Decks by Arthur Doler

Other Decks in Programming

Featured

Transcript