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Wouldn't co-worker upvotes lead to workers prioritizing their output for what attracts upvotes rather than what the company needs to get done? You'd get a team

by T-hawk 6y ago

Wouldn't co-worker upvotes lead to workers prioritizing their output for what attracts upvotes rather than what the company needs to get done? You'd get a team constantly making tools for each other and no sellable product.

ping_pong 6y ago
Yes, this definitely happens. The incentive system should align with good behavior, otherwise you get massive gaming of the performance system. I've seen this in a few companies I've been at, moreso the large ones because no one can keep complete track of everyone's gaming of the system.
csharptwdec19 6y ago
Yes. It's almost a reflection of 'Golden Parachute CEO' behavior: There's an implicit benefit to making decisions that have 'good optics' at the moment even if it takes you down a road you'll regret. Seen this a LOT with 'buy/build' decisions almost everywhere I've worked. The cost savings look great up front, but by the time you've added all your custom bits, you're hitting things like API limits (either in surface or billing) and having to shell out, or building so much boilerplate to get around the limits you may as well have built it yourself. But hey, it saved X$ the first year, who cares if it costs more the next 5 to maintain?
lkrubner 6y ago
In terms of gaming the system, that is largely avoided by use of the Google PageRank algorithm, as I mentioned below. On a team of 100 you don't have to deal with the millions of spammers that exist on the Internet. On a team of 100, the Google PageRank algorithm works almost perfectly. But as I also mentioned, any 360 tool should be just one tool that a manager uses, it should not replace all other tools. I'm curious what you thought of the original article and its idea "When your coworker does great work, tell their manager". Are you opposed to that? If you are not opposed to that, then why would you be opposed to any other system of feedback, especially those that are formalized and structured?

by T-hawk 6y ago

ping_pong 6y ago

Yes, this definitely happens. The incentive system should align with good behavior, otherwise you get massive gaming of the performance system. I've seen this in a few companies I've been at, moreso the large ones because no one can keep complete track of everyone's gaming of the system.

csharptwdec19 6y ago

Yes. It's almost a reflection of 'Golden Parachute CEO' behavior: There's an implicit benefit to making decisions that have 'good optics' at the moment even if it takes you down a road you'll regret. Seen this a LOT with 'buy/build' decisions almost everywhere I've worked. The cost savings look great up front, but by the time you've added all your custom bits, you're hitting things like API limits (either in surface or billing) and having to shell out, or building so much boilerplate to get around the limits you may as well have built it yourself. But hey, it saved X$ the first year, who cares if it costs more the next 5 to maintain?

lkrubner 6y ago

In terms of gaming the system, that is largely avoided by use of the Google PageRank algorithm, as I mentioned below. On a team of 100 you don't have to deal with the millions of spammers that exist on the Internet. On a team of 100, the Google PageRank algorithm works almost perfectly. But as I also mentioned, any 360 tool should be just one tool that a manager uses, it should not replace all other tools. I'm curious what you thought of the original article and its idea "When your coworker does great work, tell their manager". Are you opposed to that? If you are not opposed to that, then why would you be opposed to any other system of feedback, especially those that are formalized and structured?