#134 - A Developer-Centric Approach to Measuring and Improving Productivity - Margaret-Anne Storey & Abi Noda Tech Lead Journal

“The three core dimensions of developer experience are feedback loops, cognitive load, and flow state."

Margaret-Anne (Peggy) Storey and Abi Noda are the coauthors of the recently published ACM paper “DevEx: What Actually Drives Productivity”. In this episode, we discussed how we can better measure and improve developer productivity using a developer-centric approach. Peggy and Abi first began by explaining the importance of socio-technical factors in software development. They also shared their view on the well-known SPACE and DORA metrics, and pointed out the danger of misusing and abusing the DORA metrics. Peggy and Abi then explained the three core dimensions of developer experience from their latest paper, which are feedback loops, cognitive load, and flow state. Towards the end, Peggy and Abi shared tips on how we can start measuring developer experience, including how to conduct developer surveys properly.  

Listen out for:


Career Journey - [00:04:09]
First Developer Experience Paper - [00:06:19]
Socio-Technical Factors - [00:07:37]
SPACE & DORA Metrics - [00:13:35]
Misuse and Abuse of DORA Metrics - [00:18:52]
New Developer Experience Paper - [00:22:29]
Developer Experience - [00:24:55]
3 Core Dimensions - [00:28:11]
Optimizing Feedback Loops - [00:32:44]
Cognitive Load - [00:37:06]
Flow State - [00:40:32]
Importance of Culture - [00:46:25]
Measuring Developer Experience - [00:50:27]
Conducting Survey - [00:54:29]
3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [01:00:10]

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Margaret-Anne Storey’s BioMargaret-Anne (Peggy) Storey is a professor of computer science at the University of Victoria and holds a Canada Research Chair in human and social aspects of software engineering. Her research focuses on improving processes, tools, communication, and collaboration in software engineering. She serves as chief scientist at DX and consults with Microsoft to improve developer productivity.

Abi Noda’s BioAbi Noda is the founder and CEO at DX, where he leads the company’s strategic direction and R&D efforts. His work focuses on developing measurement methods to help organizations improve developer experience and productivity. Before joining DX, Noda held engineering leadership roles at various companies and founded Pull Panda, which was acquired by GitHub in 2019. For more information, visit his website at abinoda.com.

Follow Margaret:


LinkedIn – linkedin.com/in/margaret-anne-storey-8419462
Twitter – @margaretstorey

Follow Abi:


LinkedIn – linkedin.com/in/abinoda
Twitter – @abinoda
Newsletter – newsletter.abinoda.com

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