Increase Your Software Developers’ Productivity by Setting the Right Expectation

If your development team is constantly “busy” but deadlines keep slipping, it might not be a talent issue — it’s likely an expectation issue.

We’ve seen it over and over again: companies invest in hiring great developers, yet productivity suffers, frustration grows, and project outcomes fall short. The problem? Expectations are vague, misaligned, or missing entirely.

At Sapiensdev, we’ve learned that productivity thrives where clarity exists. And when you get this right, everything else starts falling into place.

Let’s say your developers are working hard, yet every sprint feels like a scramble. Code reviews are chaotic, timelines are fluid, and bugs keep popping up in production. Sound familiar?

That’s not a dev problem — that’s a leadership problem.

Our clients — especially those like Josh, the Defensive Driver with mounting pressure to hit targets, or Paul, the Fast Driver juggling growth and quality — often come to us thinking they need more developers. But the real unlock is setting clearer, smarter expectations for the team they already have.

Misaligned expectations cause:

According to McKinsey, teams with clearly defined goals and expectations are up to 30% more efficient. For IT leaders under pressure to do more with less, that kind of impact on your software development team can be transformative.

This goes way beyond assigning Jira tickets.

Setting clear expectations means aligning on details like:

❌ Bad: “Create the login screen for the new app.”

✅ Good:
“Develop a login screen that meets the following success criteria:

💡 Why this works: Everyone knows what “done” really means. The developer isn’t left guessing what’s acceptable or when to stop iterating.

❌ Bad: “Add multi-language support to the product page.”

✅ Good:
“This product page is the most visited page on our site. We’re about to launch in Mexico and Colombia, and our sales team needs it in Spanish to run paid campaigns next month. If we miss this, Marketing can’t hit their Q3 revenue targets.”

💡 Why this works: When developers understand business impact, they become more invested. This is critical for IT talent working on client-facing features — it helps them prioritize properly and avoid perfectionism on less relevant areas.

❌ Bad: “Improve database performance.”

✅ Good:
“Optimize query response times on the ‘Orders’ table to under 200ms for standard filters.
Constraints:

💡 Why this works: Constraints reduce wasted effort. Without this, a developer might propose solutions that are architecturally beautiful but unusable in the real environment.

❌ Bad: “You’re responsible for launching the new feature….”

✅ Good:
“You will be leading the development of the feature.
Decision boundaries:

💡 Why this works: It avoids confusion, overlapping efforts, and finger-pointing. Everyone knows who to go to for what, and that reduces friction in cross-functional teams.

At Sapiensdev, we once worked with a client who evaluated IT talent based strictly on how many tasks they closed per week. Their minimum bar for performance was five completed tasks weekly, regardless of complexity.

Early on, everything seemed fine — until concerns were raised about one of our senior developers “underperforming” because he was closing only 3–4 tasks a week. At first glance, it looked like he wasn’t pulling his weight.

But when we investigated further, we found something important:
Unlike his teammates, who received a healthy mix of moderate and difficult assignments, this senior dev was consistently assigned only the most challenging tasks — often 10 out of 10.

In contrast, most Sapiens developers typically receive a workload balanced around 4 difficult tasks for every 10. This developer was handling nothing but high-difficulty tickets — and still delivering great results.

Once we presented this to the client, they immediately revised their performance expectations to account for task complexity, not just task count.

💡 The takeaway: Metrics are useful — but only when paired with context. Productivity in software development isn’t just about velocity, it’s about value and difficulty. Senior IT talent may complete fewer items, but each one might carry 10x the weight.

If you’re in charge of IT Talent, you already know how difficult it is to build a productive software development team. Here are six critical areas where setting the right expectation changes everything:

One of the most frequent causes of delays in software development is unclear or constantly shifting scope. Developers need to understand not only what to build but also why it matters and what is out of bounds.

Make it a point to tie every feature or fix to a business goal. When developers know the purpose behind a task, they can make better decisions — and skip the rabbit holes. Also, make space to document and review scope before the sprint begins. That saves hours of rework.

Clarity is not just about tasks — it’s about rhythm. If you want your IT team to operate like a high-performing unit, set expectations on how and when you communicate.

Without clear cadence, miscommunication creeps in. It slows down progress and creates friction — especially with distributed nearshore software development teams, where time zone alignment is an advantage you don’t want to waste.

This one is dangerously underrated.

“Done” means different things to different people. For some, it’s when the code compiles. For others, it includes:

You cannot expect consistent results in software development unless your team aligns on what “done” actually means. Add this definition to every ticket or backlog item. Enforce it during code reviews. This one habit alone can raise the quality of your IT talent’s output significantly.

Blocked developers = lost productivity.

If a tech lead takes two days to respond to a question, your best IT talent is left waiting. Set clear expectations for:

In our experience, a 24-hour SLA (Service Level Agreement) on reviews and answers reduces idle time and keeps the sprint velocity high.

Want to know more about removing bottlenecks? Read our post on How to Manage Software Development Teams for Maximum Efficiency.

Autonomy is a productivity multiplier — but only if it’s well-defined.

If developers are unsure what they can decide on their own and what requires escalation, they’ll default to asking (or worse, guessing). That slows everyone down.

Clarify:

Boundaries create safety. Autonomy within those boundaries accelerates development.

Feedback is where alignment becomes visible — or where it fails.

The faster your team gets feedback, the faster they course-correct. Instead of finding out during the final demo that the feature misses the mark, build checkpoints into the process:

And yes, feedback goes both ways. Encourage developers to raise flags when business requirements don’t make sense. Great software development teams are built on trust and open communication.

Want a blueprint to keep that trust high? Check out Are Some Benefits More Important Than Others for Software Developers?

Let’s talk about the biggest mistake we see companies make when bringing in new developers — skipping onboarding.

Developers who receive structured onboarding reach productivity three times faster than those expected to “figure it out” as they go.

At Sapiens, our onboarding includes:

Skipping this process not only slows productivity — it creates technical debt before the first ticket is closed.

Sapiensdev builds nearshore software development teams that are designed to win. We don’t just match IT talent to your stack — we make sure they align with your business, your workflow, and your communication culture.

We start every engagement with:

We also measure success constantly and adjust expectations as your business evolves. This is one of the reasons we have a 6% attrition rate YTD 2025, compared to an industry average of 20% or more.

It’s not magic — it’s management done right.

Here’s the hard truth: If your developers are underperforming, it may not be a hiring issue — it may be a communicationissue.

When expectations are clear, software development becomes faster, cleaner, and more reliable. Developers stay longer. Roadmaps get delivered. Costs stay under control.

And your company stops playing catch-up.

If you’re ready to build a high-performing IT team that actually delivers — let’s talk. At Sapiens, we’ve helped dozens of clients unlock productivity by getting expectations right from day one.

👉 Book a free call today and find out how we can help your team go further, faster.