Factors That Influence Productivity: A Checklist

In all areas of professional work, there is are a lot of different factors that influence productivity. Especially in knowledge work, where we do not have easily and clearly measurable work products, it is difficult to capture these factors. Software development is a type of knowledge work that comes with even more specific difficulties, as software developers deal nowadays with incredibly large and complex systems. We provide a list of factors that empirically have been shown to impact productivity as checklist that a developer or software manager can use to improve productivity. We will discuss technical factors related to the product, the process and the development environment and soft factors related to the corporate culture, the team culture, individual skills and experiences, the work environment and the individual project.