How do I convince my boss to buy nice big monitors for the developers?

Question

What's the best way to convince management that buying nice big monitors for developer workstations is worthwhile?

(Whether big monitors actually are worthwhile is totally irrelevant, I'd like to convince my boss anyway.)

Answer 1

Unfortunately, it all comes down to the revenue stream. If they can afford it, convince them that more space (desktop/resolution) equals increased productivity due to the decreased need for manipulating windows.

If the budget can't cut it, and there's no budging from the boss, just drag another monitor to work. Perhaps your own initiative might lead to your management seeing the value.

Answer 2

Point him to one of these:

1. Dual Monitors Increase Productivity (LifeHacker)
2. Two Screens are Better than One (MS Research)
3. The Virtues of a Second Screen (NY Times)
4. Bigger Computer Monitors = More Productivity (WSJ)
5. Enhance Your Productivity with Multiple Monitors (WebWorkerDaily)

Keep the discussion centered on his Return on Investment and free increase in productivity.

Answer 3

I guess just show him the prices - those 24" monitors (1920x1200 resolution) are really, really cheap now. If still not convinced, 22" (1680x1050 resolution) monitors are cheaper than cheap.

Just make sure to get monitors with DVI (digital) input.

Answer 4

Threaten to sleep with his daughter. If that fails, point out that programmers work better when happy, that nothing makes a developer happier than a bigger screen, and that this is a lot cheaper than even a trivial payrise. It will improve morale beyond words. And also point out that if, god forbid, he has to lay off any programmers, he gets to keep the big screens which makes it much better value than a payrise in almost every single way. It also demonstrates to any visitors or potential employees how much he values his staff and has significant PR value just through people seeing these damn great things on everyone's desk.

The downside is that it may create bad feeling amongst those who don't have big screens; this is a function of office layout as much as anything else. But this can be mitigated by buying a hundred packets of M&Ms and leaving them in a big bowl in reception or the coffee area for everyone to share.

It's worth bearing in mind that if the big screens are too expensive or politically ruled out, a $30 video card and another 17" monitor give almost as much joy for budget $$$

Answer 5

Here's what I did:

• Stole a 2nd monitor from an empty desk when an employee went on Maternity leave
• Used it on my desk to make everybody jealous
• Had a race between myself and a single monitor user, doing a long-running intensive task (about an hour)

After I mopped the floor with the other guy (he was done around 1.5 hours) my boss was convinced. Now our entire dev team of 6 has dual 22" displays!

Your mileage may vary, I have worked at some shops before where programmers were lucky to have electricity going to their workstations, never mind a half-decent PC and monitor.

Answer 6

On a question about multiple monitors, someone has to link to Coding Horror.

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000012.html

You could also do what I did. Work in Research and Development in a large company, always money floating around here...

Answer 7

try this worked for me. Assume there is 1 big monitor in the office:

1. do a fix / start a project /etc.. It doesn't matter how big the thing is
2. prepare. On the big monitor open 5 - 20 windows. Even if the fix is just one line open 20 windows of the same file in different places in the code. Trust me your boss will not know.
3. go to your bosses desk and explain how your cool code is the bomb!. This is the hardest part as you have to make up a kick ass story about your one line code change. In general I always start with "this change will save the company X {thousand / millions / kabillion} { dollars /euro / pounds / kahoolas }.
4. now open up the same 20 windows ( while cabazoling him /her with techno jargon.. cabazoling being one of the words to use ) in their 17" monitor.
5. after a few Alt + Tabs and frantic finger pointing.. they should look completely confused.
6. then close the deal... say " this would be easier to explain on that spankingly 30" over there.. Take them there ( where the windows are already open ). Now ( this is very important ) explain the fix in layman's terms pointing only once or twice, press return ( on the prearrange window that the fix is ready in ) and say thats it....
7. finish with saying wasn't that easier on the 30" screen

works everytime or your money back(tm)

Only works if your boss is not technical.. if her /she is.. oh well...

Answer 8

I was first in my office to get dual screens. At the time that involved scrounging a PCI graphics card from IT and finding a spare CRT. I found that a major improvement over a single screen as you can always see at least two apps. I generally run everything full screen. Having to alt-tab every time I want to read a spec or email would slow me down a lot.

Soon after that all our QA staff were given a second screen. Still CRT at that point. Later we were all switched to 19" LCDs.

At some point I got a laptop that could run an additional screen and have been working with that ever since. We still have most of our developers using a single screen. Perhaps they just don't see a benefit.

The next step would be a bigger screen. When using something like Visual Studio you need maximum screen space to see a decent amount of code plus all the extra windows.

I work from home sometimes, but am stuck with an old 19" CRT. I don't have room for two screens, but could probably squeeze in a fairly big LCD. I'll go for something like a 22" when I have the cash. Then at least I could view a couple of apps in reasonably big windows.

What resolution do people use on a 30"?

Answer 9

Point out that monitors are a much longer lasting investment than CPUs. A new computer is old and slow in 2-3 years, a new monitor will probably still be going strong in a decade.

Answer 10

Just ask your boss to look at your screen for a moment. Point out how much room your IDE leaves for coding when all the sidebars & floats are open. Tell him that, yes, you need all the side-stuff, but that the majority of your actual work gets done in the little tiny space in the middle. Any rational person will agree that you need more screen-estate.

Answer 11

Tell him to price it in terms of the comp he is paying the developers. $100k / year is $50 an hour - increased morale alone will generate enough extra productivity to pay for a 20" screen in pretty short order.

Answer 12

You're going to pay $85-110k or more for a decent developer and they balk at spending $1200-$1500 for a decent set of tools (monitor, keyboard, mouse, memory, chair, etc.)

http://designlunacy.blogspot.com/2009/01/environment-keyboard.html