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What happens when t-shirt sizes end up mapped to the same point values when evaluation time comes around? My current company is in a belt tightening cycle, and
by desert_boi 6y ago
What happens when t-shirt sizes end up mapped to the same point values when evaluation time comes around? My current company is in a belt tightening cycle, and recently introduced stack ranking. Implicit metrics are still metrics, even if they're lazy.
- milesvp 6y agoYeah, this has a tendency to happen, it's sort of the constant fight. You can really only fight it with metrics, you can sort of start to show that 3tiny+1med tends to be equivalent to 1 large tends to be equivalent to 5small, or whatever. At the end of the day, you're trying to make it as hard as possible to simply add numbers. People will naturally try to map these things to ordinal numbers, and it's important to sort of keep a light constant pressure to prevent this the further away from the team you go. You need to start by training your team and your PMs and your manager to avoid this as much as possible. It's their job to train their stake holders and bosses in turn. I can tell you from experience that it's an incredible amount of effort, but the benefits are really worth it. Having a team with space to be effective is a magical place to be. I still mourn needing to leave that team and organization.
- milesvp 6y agoOh, and sorry about stack ranking. It can be the beginning of the end. Job market is bad right now. But it might be wise to look at postings, and see what techs you want to brush up on. I’ve seen stack ranking destroy orgs, especially since good teams tend to disproportionally attract good talent. But management never believes that your whole team is above average.
- desert_boi 6y agoI fortunately have had my eye on the exit for a while, and am set to leave soon. The rest of my current team isn't so lucky.