The Effect of Work Environments

on Productivity and Satisfaction

of Software Engineers (2019)

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Johnson, Zimmermann & Bird

Paper presentation

by Wander Siemers, Abel van Steenweghen & Florentin Arsene

Motivation

• Office workers still struggle to work effectively.
• Software development techniques are continuously changing.
• Increased complexity of systems
• Large codebases
• Collaboration across borders and time zones
• Little research into work environments for software engineers.

The goal of this paper

• Describe work environment factors.
• Investigate the impact of these factors on productivity and satisfaction.
• Analyze important environment factors for software engineers.
• Compare software engineers with other types of office workers.

Methods (in a nutshell)

• Study performed at Microsoft offices in Washington, US
• Initial survey (n = 297)
• Follow-up interviews (n = 19) identifying themes
• Stopped interviews after second interview with no new themes
• New survey on these themes (n = 843)
• Respondents:
• SW engineers + Program Management + 3 non-engineering disciplines
• 70% male, 30% female
• Median tenure: 7.5 years (range: <1 to 26 years)

Key Takeaways

• Important factors to everybody:
• Ability to work privately
• Ability to communicate with team
• Linked to productivity:
• General satisfaction with work environment
• Private offices
• Especially important for SW engineers:
• Decoration, furniture, distance to window
• Social norms
• Ability to work privately, ability to talk to team lead
• Software engineers differ from other knowledge workers

Limitations

• Statistical analysis → Correlation ≠ Causality
• Own measures for psychological constructs (satisfaction, productivity, etc.)
• Measures are self-reported
• All Microsoft employees → exclusion of environmental factors
• Social desirability bias → anonymous

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→ Overcome limitations by reproducibility

Thank you!