Before you can solve this issue you need to figure out why they are doing this. Here are three example possibilities: 1. Maybe they are not in the mindset of g

Before you can solve this issue you need to figure out why they are doing this. Here are three example possibilities: 1. Maybe they are not in the mindset of getting to the goal, but rather they are in the mindset that work is work. Or maybe they are doing it simply because it's a habit or because it's fashionable and they heard some celebrity say you should use a VM. Then explain to them that not all work is equal, and that it's important to do work that moves you in the direction of the goal, rather than busywork that will not pay off such as setting up a VM envirnoment. 2. Maybe they actually think that setting up a VM environment is worth it in the long term. If you don't think that is the case, explain why. 3. Maybe they don't know how to solve the problems that they are tasked to solve, and setting up elaborate dev environments is a way to procrastinate. Then make sure that they have enough guidance so that they know what concrete bit of work they can do right now to make actual progress. Ex: if they don't know how to make progress because they do not understand the database schema, then the next step should be to familiarize themselves with the database schema. You could even task them with writing documentation for the database schema to get this started. Or perhaps they procrastinate because they don't like the work that is assigned to them. There could be many other reasons, but once you figure out why they are doing this, it's likely that the solution will be relatively obvious. Try to not fall into the trap of micromanaging them. If you don't understand why they are doing this you could simply instruct them not to set up a VM dev environment. That won't solve anything in the long term because they will just find something else. It's much better if they know why they should do or should not do a that, rather than simply following orders. Following orders kills motivation and orders don't generalize to new situations, but the right mindset does. On the other hand, in some cases the issue isn't that a developer is not doing the right kind of work, but rather that the developer is doing the right kind of work but he is simply not very good at it. This can be improved to some degree with training but you have to make a business trade off here: is this developer making a net positive contribution to the business or not. Keep in mind that a developer does not have to be super productive in order to make a positive contribution. Otherwise it's time to move him to a different role or fire him.