# A Systematic Review of Productivity Factors in Software Development

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1801.06475 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.06475/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 19 Jan 2018.

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [From Copilot to Pilot: Towards AI Supported Software Development](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.04142/) (2023)
- [The Impact of LLM-Assistants on Software Developer Productivity: A Systematic Review and Mapping Study](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.03156/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Analysing and improving productivity has been one of the main goals of software engineering research since its beginnings. A plethora of studies has been conducted on various factors that resulted in several models for analysis and prediction of productivity. However, productivity is still an issue in current software development and not all factors and their relationships are known. This paper reviews the large body of available literature in order to distill a list of the main factors influencing productivity investigated so far. The measure for importance here is the number of articles a factor is mentioned in. Special consideration is given to soft or human-related factors in software engineering that are often not analysed with equal detail as more technical factors. The resulting list can be used to guide further analysis and as basis for building productivity models.