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> Measuring performance is not hard. It really depends on how you define "measuring performance". Any high-level manager can pick a set of garbage KPI's and p

> Measuring performance is not hard. It really depends on how you define "measuring performance". Any high-level manager can pick a set of garbage KPI's and pretend that they're measuring what really counts. And and many get away with that especially in large organizations. This is why performance review time is universally despised and viewed as a bullshit politics-laden activity. Measuring performance of humans is an intrinsically subjective process when you're dealing with knowledge work or anything more sophisticated than a brutal piece-work assembly line.

danieltillett 9y ago
It depends if the manager is actually interested in measuring performance or if the whole exercise is just box ticking. There is nothing wrong with subjective measures provided what is being measured is performance and not something else. Assuming a manager is not totally clueless they are able to subjectively measure performance just as well as the rest of the team. Everyone on a team knows who is pulling their weight and who is being being pulled along. There are course edge cases where some people go unrecognised or other get the credit, but in the main most people know who is contributing and who is not. The real problem is that actual performance is rarely even subjectively measured.
fogetti 9y ago
I completely agree. Also there is an obvious discrepancy between the knowledge of the manager and the knowledge of the team member. How can a manager evaluate another person's skills when he doesn't have the knowledge in the first place? It's a misguided preconception that managers are more skilled than their subordinates. I am still have to see happening this in real life. OTOH what I usually see happening is that managers assign more challenging tasks to specific people based on their prejudice and assumptions then they evaluate those very same people as top performers, while other team members don't even have the chance to perform well (because of the lack of tasks). :D
- xtracto 9y ago
  > How can a manager evaluate another person's skills when he doesn't have the knowledge in the first place? As a Manager, I am not measuring your performance based on your skill, but on the tangible output of solutions that provide value to the business that you produce. Your skills and knowledge are your own tools that you can use to produce such output in less time or with better quality.
  - closeparen 9y ago
    As an IC, managers exist to set me in a direction and then free me from the political wrangling necessary to deliver (recognized) business value: stakeholder management, scoping, sufficient resourcing, realistic timelines, cooperation and prioritization from teams we depend on, air cover while I deal with unexpected setbacks, upward/outward/inbound communication about the project, etc. We're a team on this, but I have my area of responsibility and you have yours. It's on you to replace me if I'm not doing my part; I have no such option. If I'm accountable to (recognized) business value, something is deeply wrong. The whole reason we have you is to shoulder that responsibility, and to insulate developers so that we're only accountable for/thinking about architecture and implementation. If I have to do the job of both engineering manager and engineer, I'll find somewhere to pay me both compensation packages (i.e. consulting), or (more likely) somewhere I can do just one. As an aside, even if all your projects are successful, comparing ICs on business value created only tells you who you gave the most impactful projects to. Sometimes your best engineers are stuck doing unsexy, low-impact but necessary maintenance. They create no business value, but prevent existing business value from being destroyed by bit-rot. Sometimes your weakest engineers get a low-hanging-fruit project that's impossible to screw up and immensely valuable to the business. That does not make them ready to take a larger role in more difficult problems, which is typically what a high performance rating entails.
    - crispyambulance 9y ago
      > ...managers exist to set me in a direction and then free me from the political wrangling necessary to deliver (recognized) business value... I think that's most applicable to large orgs with hundreds of people, but it breaks down in small shops. Nevertheless, it demonstrates that measuring performance is a complex activity.
- majormajor 9y ago
  > How can a manager evaluate another person's skills when he doesn't have the knowledge in the first place? Are you wanting to only ever work for people who have a superset of your knowledge? Who know everything you do (for evaluation purposes) but probably also even more? That sounds miserable. I consider it part of my job to produce results that demonstrate my skill to my manager. I don't want to be micromanaged, and the most effective way I've found to get independence of method is by demonstrating quality of results.

danieltillett 9y ago

It depends if the manager is actually interested in measuring performance or if the whole exercise is just box ticking. There is nothing wrong with subjective measures provided what is being measured is performance and not something else. Assuming a manager is not totally clueless they are able to subjectively measure performance just as well as the rest of the team. Everyone on a team knows who is pulling their weight and who is being being pulled along. There are course edge cases where some people go unrecognised or other get the credit, but in the main most people know who is contributing and who is not. The real problem is that actual performance is rarely even subjectively measured.

fogetti 9y ago

I completely agree. Also there is an obvious discrepancy between the knowledge of the manager and the knowledge of the team member. How can a manager evaluate another person's skills when he doesn't have the knowledge in the first place? It's a misguided preconception that managers are more skilled than their subordinates. I am still have to see happening this in real life. OTOH what I usually see happening is that managers assign more challenging tasks to specific people based on their prejudice and assumptions then they evaluate those very same people as top performers, while other team members don't even have the chance to perform well (because of the lack of tasks). :D

xtracto 9y ago
> How can a manager evaluate another person's skills when he doesn't have the knowledge in the first place? As a Manager, I am not measuring your performance based on your skill, but on the tangible output of solutions that provide value to the business that you produce. Your skills and knowledge are your own tools that you can use to produce such output in less time or with better quality.
- closeparen 9y ago
  As an IC, managers exist to set me in a direction and then free me from the political wrangling necessary to deliver (recognized) business value: stakeholder management, scoping, sufficient resourcing, realistic timelines, cooperation and prioritization from teams we depend on, air cover while I deal with unexpected setbacks, upward/outward/inbound communication about the project, etc. We're a team on this, but I have my area of responsibility and you have yours. It's on you to replace me if I'm not doing my part; I have no such option. If I'm accountable to (recognized) business value, something is deeply wrong. The whole reason we have you is to shoulder that responsibility, and to insulate developers so that we're only accountable for/thinking about architecture and implementation. If I have to do the job of both engineering manager and engineer, I'll find somewhere to pay me both compensation packages (i.e. consulting), or (more likely) somewhere I can do just one. As an aside, even if all your projects are successful, comparing ICs on business value created only tells you who you gave the most impactful projects to. Sometimes your best engineers are stuck doing unsexy, low-impact but necessary maintenance. They create no business value, but prevent existing business value from being destroyed by bit-rot. Sometimes your weakest engineers get a low-hanging-fruit project that's impossible to screw up and immensely valuable to the business. That does not make them ready to take a larger role in more difficult problems, which is typically what a high performance rating entails.
  - crispyambulance 9y ago
    > ...managers exist to set me in a direction and then free me from the political wrangling necessary to deliver (recognized) business value... I think that's most applicable to large orgs with hundreds of people, but it breaks down in small shops. Nevertheless, it demonstrates that measuring performance is a complex activity.
majormajor 9y ago
> How can a manager evaluate another person's skills when he doesn't have the knowledge in the first place? Are you wanting to only ever work for people who have a superset of your knowledge? Who know everything you do (for evaluation purposes) but probably also even more? That sounds miserable. I consider it part of my job to produce results that demonstrate my skill to my manager. I don't want to be micromanaged, and the most effective way I've found to get independence of method is by demonstrating quality of results.