About Scar, Focus Factor and Buns

Inspired by another book on project management. This is "Scrum and XP: Notes from the Front" by Henrik Kniberg.

Scrum is cool and beautiful. It is especially beautiful (and, in my opinion, really applicable only in this case), when all infrastructure problems are solved, when the efforts of the whole company (and not just the scrum teams) are aimed at producing a quality product on time and when the programmers task is to develop software ( that is, no one will pull the developer “out of the stream” to perform fantastically unusual tasks).

One of the phrases from Kniberg’s book: “We usually use 70% as the default focus factor for new teams.” The “focus factor” is a certain coefficient reflecting the ratio of the performance of an existing team to the performance of the “ideal” team of programmers. What about programmers who constantly have to be distracted by the solution of economic problems, technical support (due to the terrible lack of staffing due to savings in the economic and support departments) and other problems that are terribly reducing the focus factor?
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In another book (“The Human Factor ...” by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister) it is written that in an ideal workroom for a programmer there should be a window for each employee (so that he can be more inspired to develop and because we work to live, but not the other way around). What about rooms for 10–20 people with two windows each (facing the industrial area, where you don’t want to look again)?

Let us discuss domestic realities that kill the theory of the respected DeMarko and Lister and the practice of a no less respected Kniberg at the root. Let's start with the social package.

I recently talked with a colleague, the PMO manager from a neighboring programming firm (PMO is the Project Management Office, its very presence indicates that the company has modern views on project management; we have the classical functional structure, at best, a weak matrix, us PMO does not shine). So, in the near future they will deliver to the office and give employees unlimited consumption of snacks and drinks: chips / nuts, cookies / rolls, juices, etc. As a colleague said: “Suppose our programmer wanted to have a bite in the evening. And he has a difficult dilemma: go eat or work a few more hours. The goodies in the office will incline him to work. ” And really, let's consider the dilemma more closely. So, the table (figures are taken "from the ceiling", but I am almost sure of them):

ten %	Ignore the feeling of hunger and will work.
ten %	Bite that brought with them in the morning (I always do).
ten %	They will buy something in the nearest stall, then return to work.
70%	They will go home, return to work only tomorrow morning.

We lost 70% of programmers because of the banal famine! And they could work and work. And, by the way, there are quite a few people who are at the peak of their performance in the evening. For the same salary! That's the question: will the buns pay off? Yes, three times at least! And imagine, in our office, it’s not that there are no buns, but toilet paper runs out regularly. This is generally a crime against our own staff! Draw a sign about this dilemma?

Let us extend the concept of “buns” to the whole social package and draw a comparative tablet of what one of the market leaders offers to what is in our company (which is very similar to the average market average):

Bun	Market leader	Our middling
Competitive salary	+	±
Bonuses	+	- / +
100% sick pay	+	-
Honey. insurance (including children)	+	-
Additional material payments in various cases (for example, at the birth of a child)	+	+
Pay for sports	+	-
Free lunches, tea, coffee	+	-
Mobile payment	+	-
Foreign language courses	+	-
Corporate training	+	-
Relocation assistance for employment	+	-
Regular corporate parties	+	+
Regular Team Team Buildings	+	-
Comfortable office with seating areas, table tennis, etc.	+	---

Oh, fantastic! Our office scored several pluses and "half-plus" in comparison with the super leader of the market! I am surprised myself. Indeed, this is not so bad, but I know a lot of companies for which a minus would stand in each graph. I would not work for such an employer. But people work there. Why???
It’s a paradoxical situation - the management of companies is not accustomed to taking care of employees - that is, the people on whom the well-being of this management itself depends (which is even more true when the head of the company is its owner, which is often). One gets the impression that these are the costs of the domestic mentality, and in the West everything is different (I used to work as a programmer in London — there, in fact, everything was different). Naturally, our people respond to the “carelessness” with about the same - someone leads personal projects during working hours, others work 5 hours instead of eight (ignoring the working time accounting system); I am writing this during working hours.

The result - I'm afraid that the focus factor does not exceed 40-50%. And it is even very optimistic. Therefore, it is easy to calculate the employer's loss only on wages:
<Loss of employer on salary> = <salary of employees> * (70 - 50)%,
where 70% is a focus factor taken from Kniberg (we will not consider the ideal focus factor, since it is very similar to 100% efficiency).

Or it’s worth looking at it all from the other side - maybe it’s us, the programmers (well, the managers who have stuck in it) - snickering people, to whom give all sorts of fat buns, and more. Others only work for wages. And we need extra motivation for inspiration (what kind of work without inspiration?). Correct me if I'm wrong.

PS Surely, many times on Habré was discussed. If so, sorry, it is purely painful.
PPS In general, I want to try the buns for free! I'll go to your company as a project manager if you have buns and never runs out of toilet paper. I pledge to work out the costs of buns eaten by me and other pleasures of life.