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I wonder if the problem isn't how to measure productivity, but the fact that we bother to focus on individual contribution rather than how the organization oper

by bpyne 7y ago

I wonder if the problem isn't how to measure productivity, but the fact that we bother to focus on individual contribution rather than how the organization operates with respect to organizational goals. I work for a mid-sized university. We're a bit unique, for higher ed, in that we have centralized IT. Our projects support university 5-year plans. When projects do not complete successfully or are extraordinarily late people notice. If teams are hitting their goals - university goals - does it matter if every person on a team is hitting some averaged-out metric for productivity? If a team isn't hitting its goals, usually it's not due to individual contribution, it's due to poor communication, unrealistic goals, frequently shifting requirements/priorities, etc. Usually a sit down with the team to get feedback will tell more of why the team failed. A hobby of mine is coaching youth basketball. To increase my ability, I joined a forum. Today the moderator posted a quote from NBA player Marc Gasol. Marc lamented the tracking of individual stats because the stats don't tell the story. He stated, correctly IMO, that many critical factors are not tracked and would be hard to measure the importance of. For instance, a player who doesn't score much but prevents his defensive assignment from being a play maker (play makers are more than just scorers). Or the player who sets up the plays that allow other people to score (for those familiar with basketball, think screens/picks). Or the guy who is on the bench but helps calm down players when their team is down. I've come to feel the same way about IT teams. A win is a team win; a loss is a team loss. In both situations, many factors came into play in order for the outcome to occur. My experience is that individual productivity stats don't give you a clear idea why the outcome occurred. In the end, it's all about the success of the organization.

tomp 7y ago
I agree that team productivity matters more, and much should be left in the hands of team leads... in addition, that enables diversity and internal "cooperative competition" where different leadership/cooperation styles can be tried and tested and evolved further (potentially different ones in different "niches"). However, to some degree, that's just pushing the KPIs down a level (from Cs to team leads). Which might be a good thing, as team leads/line managers are probably better able to assess individual employee productivity... although AFAIK that's already how it works in most companies, and, well, it doesn't really work that well. > For instance, a player who doesn't score much but prevents his defensive assignment from being a play maker (play makers are more than just scorers). Or the player who sets up the plays that allow other people to score (for those familiar with basketball, think screens/picks). Or the guy who is on the bench but helps calm down players when their team is down. Yeah, these are certainly good criteria. The benefit is that in such sport, it's probably easier to assess performance/impact, as it's all face time. To some degree, these criteria are applicable to tech work as well ("he's in the office 2 days/week only, but he always solves the problem when the server goes down overnight or over the weekend" or "she works remotely, I never saw her before, but she found 37 critical security bugs in the past year").
subhobroto 7y ago
> I wonder if the problem isn't how to measure productivity, but the fact that we bother to focus on individual contribution rather than how the organization operates with respect to organizational goals. YES! Are you aware of pair and mob programming? People want to be successful. No one likes to lose. Even a freeloader is expressing that behavior because they believe that is the best way to win. Pair and mob programming completely makes freeloading impossible. It also is true teamwork
dredmorbius 7y ago
Your comment exemplifies what I'd considered responding to your parent: rate teams and projects, not individuals. Metrics of significance are not atomically SMART, they're probabalistic, noisy, and systemic. Hrm: PNS?

by bpyne 7y ago

tomp 7y ago

I agree that team productivity matters more, and much should be left in the hands of team leads... in addition, that enables diversity and internal "cooperative competition" where different leadership/cooperation styles can be tried and tested and evolved further (potentially different ones in different "niches"). However, to some degree, that's just pushing the KPIs down a level (from Cs to team leads). Which might be a good thing, as team leads/line managers are probably better able to assess individual employee productivity... although AFAIK that's already how it works in most companies, and, well, it doesn't really work that well. > For instance, a player who doesn't score much but prevents his defensive assignment from being a play maker (play makers are more than just scorers). Or the player who sets up the plays that allow other people to score (for those familiar with basketball, think screens/picks). Or the guy who is on the bench but helps calm down players when their team is down. Yeah, these are certainly good criteria. The benefit is that in such sport, it's probably easier to assess performance/impact, as it's all face time. To some degree, these criteria are applicable to tech work as well ("he's in the office 2 days/week only, but he always solves the problem when the server goes down overnight or over the weekend" or "she works remotely, I never saw her before, but she found 37 critical security bugs in the past year").

subhobroto 7y ago

> I wonder if the problem isn't how to measure productivity, but the fact that we bother to focus on individual contribution rather than how the organization operates with respect to organizational goals. YES! Are you aware of pair and mob programming? People want to be successful. No one likes to lose. Even a freeloader is expressing that behavior because they believe that is the best way to win. Pair and mob programming completely makes freeloading impossible. It also is true teamwork

dredmorbius 7y ago

Your comment exemplifies what I'd considered responding to your parent: rate teams and projects, not individuals. Metrics of significance are not atomically SMART, they're probabalistic, noisy, and systemic. Hrm: PNS?