The progress principle: the key to improving productivity and job satisfaction
Today, there’s growing interest in improving the Developer Experience (DevEx). And, for good reason: a great developer experience increases productivity and job satisfaction. Interestingly, a lot of the discussion about DevEx reminds me of a great 2011 article The Power of Small Wins, which describes the progress principle - a simple yet powerful idea that encapsulates the results of research into what motivates employees who do creative work.
In this article, I describe the progress principle, how to achieve it and how it relates to DevEx. Let’s start by first looking at the progress principle.