Productivity vs. Quality Dichotomy of Software Development: An Empirical Study of the Impact of Work Effort, User Involvement, and Team Size, on Software Development Performance

Performance of software development is measured by two major criteria – productivity and quality. While the criteria complement each other, they often present a dilemma for developers to focus on the both facets at the same time. Analyzing data on software development performance collected over a 13-year period from 20 countries, we investigated how three software development factors – (1) work effort, (2) level of user involvement (3) team size– affect the performance of software development. The results suggest that productivity and quality of software development are affected in different – often-conflicting – ways by the three software development factors. The findings provide empirical evidence that the two performance criteria do create dichotomic situations for software developer and require careful attention of project management teams to find the optimal balance between the two conflicting criteria.