A Day in the Life of a Developer: An Ideal Workday versus an Actual Workday
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Ask any software developer and they’ll tell you that productivity and job satisfaction are deeply linked. Meeting both impacts not just an individual’s performance, but also keeps the client happy and results in greater organizational success.
However, if one considers the day-to-day activities of a developer, they include tasks that go beyond their focus area of coding and developing new products. These include preparing and updating project documents, attending meetings, managing existing and new team members, keeping on top of emails, and adhering to compliance, among other myriad responsibilities.
The challenges can come from anywhere:
- Changing organizational priorities
- Technical issues
- Dependence on other teams
- Endless communication.
How does this impact the productivity and satisfaction of an individual and that of the organization in the long run?
While all these are essential to the software development life cycle, a software developer’s ideal day is one where they can prioritize tasks that enhance productivity and satisfaction. In practice, however, an actual workday and an ideal workday are not always the same.
Technology as a Disruptor
Technology has empowered workplace productivity in ways not imagined before. However, the same technology can also create numerous interruptions throughout the day via emails, text messages, calls, and web meetings.
Responding to these ‘pings’, essential though it may be, hinders productivity and impacts satisfaction. Developers struggle to maintain a balance between their ideal workday and the actual workday.
According to a study conducted by ProHance, developers find themselves spending more time on communication instead of coding. This is not an ideal scenario and can have a significant impact on long-term productivity and efficiency.
The Cost of Multitasking
Unlike what is conventionally believed, multitasking is a myth. Switching between different tools and technology can hinder productivity, and juggling multiple tasks at the same time can be counterproductive. What actually happens is that people are switching between tasks which increases the mental load, leads to exhaustion, and requires a larger re-focusing time to come back to the original task.
Studies have shown that people who multitask, take longer to complete tasks than those who focus on one thing at a time. There is a decrease in efficiency and often the quality of work goes down too. All this has a direct bearing on the output. Did you know that multitasking can reduce productivity by almost 40%?
Technology as an Enabler
Our analysis shows that as the gap between the ideal and actual workday increases, productivity and satisfaction both drop down. Activities like coding, documentation, refactoring, and learning new technologies had a positive impact on productivity and satisfaction, while tasks such as development environment setup, maintenance, and communication had a negative impact.
Can technology and automation offer a solution in this scenario? Advancements in technology are automating repetitive tasks and optimizing the process. There are several Gen AI tools in the market today that can help with core tasks, such as coding, and Gen AI is rapidly emerging as a core component that can help an organization in ‘delivery acceleration’.
However, developers are more likely to benefit from tools that can take care of non-coding tasks, such as documentation, setting up environments, and compliance.
When surveyed, developers listed the top tasks that they’d most like to automate.
- Documentation (creating, updating, and maintaining documentation)
- Environment setup/maintenance (configuring development environments)
- Testing (authoring, execution, and monitoring of tests)
- Task tracking and backlog management
- Security and compliance
Our study shows that developers who use AI tools for support functions have demonstrated higher levels of productivity and satisfaction as compared to those who use them less frequently.
The ProHance Solution
At ProHance, we understand the challenges that developers face today. Deadlines are tight, the client is demanding, and there are numerous deviations that draw focus away from core responsibilities.
We can help streamline your operational process by identifying tasks within the project that can be automated and taken off the developer’s plate. Our involvement extends further and we can help with the adoption of AI tools, thus effectively managing the day in the life of a developer. We do this by:
- Reporting the time spent on AI applications, such as ChatGPT, Gemini, etc.
- Comparing productivity of teams that have adopted AI against those that haven’t
- Identifying repetitive activities and tools to find the application of AI on the ground level.
The benefits of reducing the gap between the ideal workday and the actual workday are two-pronged. Not only will the adoption of technology increase the productivity of developers, but business leaders can also use data to make insight-driven decisions that can make your organization smarter, faster, and more efficient.
