The McKinsey Developer Productivity Debate | Ori Keren & Kelly Vaughn

The debate on measuring developer productivity has arrived - and it’s here to stay.

On this week’s episode of Dev Interrupted, cohost Conor Bronsdon welcomes LinearB cofounder & CEO Ori Keren and Kelly Vaughn, Director of Engineering at Spot AI, to offer their critiques of a debate that has captured the attention of the engineering community: can you measure developer productivity?

Consulting giant McKinsey published an article that ignited a firestorm, prompting industry leaders Kent Beck and Gergely Orosz to counter with a detailed 2-part response via the Pragmatic Engineer.

Believing the industry to be at a crossroads, Ori and Kelly combine forces to offer their perspective on the debate, sharing why it’s an opportunity for dev teams everywhere to “roll out metrics the right way.”

Show Notes:

• The McKinsey article: Yes, you can measure software developer productivity
• Orosz & Beck 1: Measuring developer productivity? A response to McKinsey, Part 1
• Orosz & Beck 2: Measuring developer productivity? A response to McKinsey, Part 2
• CTO Board Slides
• Kelly's newsletter: Lessons in Engineering Leadership
• Register for the 2023 Engineering Benchmarks Report Release Webinar

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• MCP Server: Interact with your engineering data using natural language to build custom reports and get answers on the fly.