lines of code

i was consulting at a client a couple months back. the president of the company was concerned that his staff was not as productive as it used to be.

about a year or two prior, the owner and the president decided they wanted more software to be produced. they decided to add offices overseas and double (at least) the staff.

shockingly… two years later, they are 3 years behind on delivering a new version of their flagship product. on top of that, there is little known about just what they have in the way of valuable assets in the project source code.

now the president is looking to measure lines of code and to see what the difference is between team “A” versus team “B” to try and maximize developer productivity.

i tried to make a few forays into explaining there is more to development productivity than LOC. but i didn’t have much luck. maybe i’ll check back in a year and see how they are faring.

any silliness like that where you work? or, better, any successful ways folks are measuring developer output (#feature points increasing over time, etc.)?