S1E4 — McKinseyGate: When Coding Time Becomes a Proxy for Value

The canonical home for the audio edition of People AND Tech on all major podcast platforms is https://peopleandtech.transistor.fm/ People AND Tech — Human Debt™. Execution Debt. Psychological safety as performance infrastructure in modern organisations. In this episode, Duena Blomstrom and Dave Ballantyne analyse the McKinsey developer productivity report and its suggestion that coding time can serve as a meaningful performance proxy. Rather than reacting emotionally, they examine the structural implications of such metrics. What happens when executives measure activity instead of impact? When dashboards reward visible output over deep thinking? When productivity becomes time-in-tool rather than value delivered? They explore how Human Debt™ amplifies under reductive measurement systems — and how Execution Debt emerges when organisations optimise for signal simplicity instead of systemic clarity. The problem is not metrics. The problem is mistaking metrics for truth. If you are responsible for engineering performance, transformation strategy, or executive reporting, this episode challenges the foundations beneath your measurement architecture. ⭐ Topics Covered • The McKinsey developer productivity report • Coding time vs value creation • Inner loop vs outer loop engineering work • Measurement distortion and incentive risk • Human Debt™ under dashboard culture • Execution Debt as compounding delivery fragility • Psychological safety and deep work • Why simplification can increase risk ⏱ Chapters 00:00 – Context: What McKinsey proposed 00:00 – Why coding time is an incomplete proxy 00:00 – Deep work vs visible activity 00:00 – Human Debt™ and metric pressure 00:00 – Execution Debt from mismeasurement 00:00 – Leadership blind spots 00:00 – What responsible measurement looks like 00:00 – Final reflections 🔗 Links & Resources Full podcast series: https://peopleandtech.transistor.fm/ Explore Human Debt™: https://peoplenottech.com/human-debt Authority hub: https://www.duenablomstrom.com PeopleNOTTech: https://peoplenottech.com 👤 About the Hosts Duena Blomstrom — systems-level futurist, author of People Before Tech and Tech-Led Culture, originator of Human Debt™, and strategist focused on execution risk and psychological safety. Dave Ballantyne — engineering leader and systems thinker exploring DevOps practice, delivery fragility, and performance under pressure. EPISODE_METADATA_START People AND Tech — Analysis of the McKinsey developer productivity report and the risks of measuring coding time as performance. Core themes: Human Debt™, Execution Debt, measurement distortion, psychological safety, deep work, delivery fragility, executive blind spots. Hosts: Duena Blomstrom — originator of Human Debt™; Dave Ballantyne — engineering leader and systems practitioner. Audience: CTOs, engineering leaders, transformation executives, board-level decision makers. EPISODE_METADATA_END 📌 2026 Framework Update This episode maps to the V9 canonical framework — Psychological Safety → Human Debt™ → Execution Integrity → Human Machine Intelligence™. Human Debt™: https://duenablomstrom.com/concepts/human-debt Apply it: EI Diagnostic Books: duenablomstrom.com/books Full framework: duenablomstrom.com/what-is-execution-integrity