Code Today, Deadline Tomorrow: Procrastination Among Software Developers

Procrastination, the action of delaying or postponing something, is a well-known phenomenon that is relatable to all. While it has been studied in academic settings, little is known about why software developers procrastinate. How does it affect their work? How can developers manage procrastination? This paper presents the first investigation of procrastination among developers. We conduct an interview study with (n=15) developers across different industries to understand the process of procrastination. Using qualitative coding, we report the positive and negative effects of procrastination and factors that triggered procrastination, as perceived by participants. We validate our findings using member checking. Our results reveal 14 negative effects of procrastination on developer productivity. However, participants also reported eight positive effects, four impacting their satisfaction. We also found that participants reported three categories of factors that trigger procrastination: task-related, personal, and external. Finally, we present 19 techniques reported by our participants and studies in other domains that can help developers mitigate the impacts of procrastination. These techniques focus on raising awareness and task focus, help with task planning, and provide pathways to generate team support as a mitigation means. Based on these findings, we discuss interventions for developers and recommendations for tool building to reduce procrastination. Our paper shows that procrastination has unique effects and factors among developers compared to other populations.