A measure of the efficiency of production.
8
votes
0answers
144 views
Do workplace performance appraisals and workplace goal-setting actually hurt morale?
I have the strong suspicion that workplace performance appraisals and the act of setting employee goals do little to improve the employee performance and often serve to hurt the employee morale, which ...
9
votes
0answers
200 views
Does menstruation affect the ability of women to do blue-collar work?
I just read about the concept of menstrual leave. The Wikipedia article says it originated in Japan, and applies in a couple of asian countries.
In 2005, Australian Manufacturing Workers Union ...
12
votes
1answer
288 views
Have Time Management Techniques Been Shown To Be Effective
This might be too vague of a question, but I've been trying to determine the effectiveness of time management systems. There is a lot of information on various time management systems....all of which ...
7
votes
0answers
274 views
Is 22-23 Celsius (72-73 degrees F) measurably the optimal temperature for office productivity
I must admit that I lost the original reference for the claim, but almost certain it was LifeHacker, so it is notable enough.
The claim is that 72-73 degrees Fahrenheit (or about 22-23 Celsius) is ...
13
votes
0answers
303 views
Do office plants increase productivity?
Treehugger: Research has shown that a healthy office space with plants and open windows is more conducive to productivity.
Do plants in the office increase the productivity of employees?
1
vote
1answer
496 views
Does eating pizza decrease 'energy'? [closed]
Examples of claims from this Reddit thread:
It's just one of those foods that tends to kill your energy level for a bit after you eat it.
The pizza thing is just because it tends to kill your ...
10
votes
0answers
476 views
Does closing a swing top bottle have any negative impact on the beer company?
Here in Germany there are a number of beer brands that come in a swing top bottle.
(picture taken from Wikipedia; copyright by Michiel1972, license GNU/GFDL)
I often heard the claim that you should ...
7
votes
1answer
558 views
Is working more than 40 hours a week pointless? [closed]
I've read in some news articles that after putting in 40 hours a week, productivity drops off dramatically, to the point where it is suggested that it's not worth doing at all. Is this true?
I've ...
15
votes
1answer
1k views
Are there studies clearly illustrating the great discrepancies in programmer productivity?
There exists a widely held (and frequently asserted) belief that there is a very big (relatively to other professions) discrepancy between the top tier software developers and the non-top-tier.
...
25
votes
1answer
8k views
Is professional software development discriminatory?
It's quite a common experience that there are fewer women and African (-American) people in programming as warranted by the natural proportions. It is not so obvious whether this is due to ...
13
votes
1answer
663 views
What study showed that using headphones to drown out office noise is detrimental?
I was watching an interview with Spolsky and he mentioned some study that showed listening to music with headphones caused a drop in having "deep thoughts"
...
16
votes
2answers
760 views
Is there a benefit to “resting your brain” for a significant period of time?
I had an intense quarter at school where I was studying and working pretty much all the time. Over winter break, I had many grand intentions of studying on my own and learning what I wanted to learn. ...
25
votes
1answer
788 views
Does a tidy desk make you more productive than a messy one?
I'm a messy desk sort of person (even the desktops on my computers are messy). But there are loads of personal productivity evangelists telling me that a tidy desk would make me more productive.
...
27
votes
2answers
1k views
Is an open internet access a productivity killer at the workplace?
I hear about workplaces banning sites like Facebook, or Twitter, all in the name of productivity gain.
Has there been any studies showing any evidence that having full access to browse the web at ...
1
vote
0answers
153 views
Is Brainwave Entrainment for real? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Can I get high using binaural beats?
I've had days when I have a difficult time thinking and getting creative, and then I have other days where I have no problem at all ...
12
votes
1answer
629 views
Is non-union labor more productive than union labor?
A claim was made today by an equipment manufacturing industry representative that in the last 10 years Non-Union labor had far out paced Union labor in productivity gains and that Non-Union Shops ...
15
votes
1answer
637 views
Does using headphones to drown out ambient noise reduce the quality of work?
There has been some fierce discussion about this subject in blogosphere and on Programmers.SE. It all started with Joel Spolsky's claim:
[...] putting on headphones to drown out the ambient noise ...
8
votes
2answers
3k views
Does defragmenting a hard disk improve your computer's performance in a noticeable way? [closed]
Just wondering if defragmenting your hard disk is any useful and if there have been any studies on this topic. I believe it is quite useless as I never noticed any improvement.
Preconditions:
The ...
4
votes
2answers
363 views
Do Open-Plan Offices have productivity advantages?
There are quite a few studies debunking the effectiveness of Open-Plan Offices (sometimes named Open Space), such as this study by the Queensland University of Technology. However, I wonder whether it ...
12
votes
2answers
1k views
Are there reliable metrics for measuring the productivity of a programmer?
This is really a followup question to Is programming in Python faster than in C, C++ or Java? that I also posted on programmers.SE. The first comment seem to challenge the very idea that programmer ...
21
votes
1answer
1k views
Does the Pomodoro Technique increase productivity?
A lot is written about The Pomodoro Technique on various productivity blogs, is there any hard evidence that it improves productivity compared to basic scheduling of work?
149
votes
2answers
18k views
Do bigger or more monitors increase productivity?
There is a ton of anecdotal evidence that adding more screen estate (more or larger monitors) leads to an increase in productivity, especially for programmers.
For example, where I work, all ...
