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It’s interesting that in the research from Peopleware mentioned in the article, the factor of 10 difference was mostly between different organisations, while individuals within an organisation were typically quite close in performance.

This suggests to me that the biggest influences on productivity for the organisation as a whole are probably to do with collaboration, culture and environment rather than extraordinary individual skill.

Maybe the very best programmers aren’t extraordinary just because they can solve the most difficult problems, but also because they are better at presenting their solutions in ways that are more accessible to other developers. That would have the twin benefits of improving productivity in its own right and of implicitly teaching by example so less experienced developers in the organisation would tend to develop the same skills themselves over time.

If you had a seed of programmers on that level and a culture that promoted mentoring, pair programming, code reviews or similar collaborative exercises, it’s not hard to imagine that such an organisation would develop significantly higher collective performance over time than another organisation without those benefits, even if most people joining each organisation were of a similar level of skill and experience to start with.




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