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0 pointsTeMPOraL1y ago0 comments

> We aren't seeing higher overall levels of productivity.

You can't measure productivity for shit, otherwise companies would look entirely differently. Starting from me not having to do my own finances or event planning or hundred other things that are not my job description, not my specialty, and which were done by dedicated staff just a few decades ago, before tech "improved office productivity".

> We aren't seeing the developers who start using copilot/gpt rush ahead of their peers.

That's because individual productivity is usually constrained by team productivity. Devs rushing ahead of their teammates makes the team dysfunctional.

> We aren't seeing any ability to cut back on developer spend.

Devs aren't stupid. They're not going to give you an opportunity if they can avoid it.

> We aren't seeing anything positive yet and many developers have been using copilot/gpt for >1 year.

My belief is that's because you aren't measuring the right things. But then, no one is. This is a problem well-known to be unsolved.

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WgaqPdNr7PGLGVW1y ago· 6 in thread

> You can't measure productivity for shit

We can't measure small changes and we aren't great at comparing across orgs.

However, at the director level we can certainly see a 50% or 100% productivity improvement in our teams and with individuals in our teams.

We aren't seeing changes of this magnitude because they don't exist.

WgaqPdNr7PGLGVW1y ago

There are other potential explanations.

Perhaps developers are now slacking off.

Perhaps we have added more meetings because developers have more free time.

Or perhaps developers were never the bottleneck.

We can see large productivity improvements when we make simple changes like having product managers join the developers daily standup meetings. We can even measure productivity improvements from Slacks/Zooms auto-summary features. Yet gpt/copilot doesn't even register.

Vegenoid1y ago

> We can even measure productivity improvements from Slacks/Zooms auto-summary features.

While not code generation, this auto-summary is powered by the same tech. I think using it to sift through and surface relevant information, as opposed to generation of new things, will have the biggest impact.

By far the greatest value I get out of LLMs is asking them to help me understand code written by others. I feel like this is an under-appreciated use. How long has this feature been in Copilot? Since February or so? Are people using it? I do not use Copilot.

SanderNL1y ago

> Or perhaps developers were never the bottleneck.

Now that's dangerous thinking, but I think you are onto something.

bongodongobob1y ago

I use ChatGPT copilot etc to reduce my cognitive load and get a lot of things done quicker so I also have more time to fuck around. You're out of your goddamn mind if you think I'm going to increase my output for the mere chance that maybe I'll get an above inflation raise in a year. "We gave our devs a magic 10% productivity boost machine, but their output hasn't increased? I guess the machine doesn't work..." It's amusing how out of touch you are.

amanaplanacanal1y ago

There is an ethical question in here that I don’t have an answer for. As an employee, I find a way to do my job more efficiently. Do I hand those efficiencies to my employer so I can get a pat on the head, or do I keep them to myself to make my own life less stressful? If I give them to the boss, do they even have the ability to increase my pay? Using the extra time to slack off rather than enriching the employer might be the best choice.

Edit: and now I see chillfox made the same point.

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mbernstein1y ago

Out of curiosity what are you using to measure developer productivity platform or metrics wish (if beyond typical sprint metrics)?

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