5 ms·

> “Productivity” is not something a person can measure themselves. And management can? Please, tell me how. Give me metrics and methods for measurement that

> “Productivity” is not something a person can measure themselves. And management can? Please, tell me how. Give me metrics and methods for measurement that can effectively capture productivity. What's the KPI for "strong corporate culture" or "innovation"? Because if we can't rely on individual experiences, then clearly the only other option is systemic measurements, so please, tell me how!

spoonjim 5y ago
Not everything can be numerically measured. By what metric is Macbeth better than the Da Vinci Code? Also, not all measurements should be shared. Let’s say that they have data showing that new hire productivity and skill growth is much lower when senior engineers are WFH. They’re not going to share that data when forcing senior engineers to be in the office, since it could foment resentment of junior staff.
- CarelessExpert 5y ago
  > Not everything can be numerically measured. So then why shouldn't we trust individual experiences? What's the evidence that those reports are not reliable while management perceptions are if this stuff isn't measurable? > Let’s say that they have data showing that new hire productivity and skill growth is much lower when senior engineers are WFH. They’re not going to share that data when forcing senior engineers to be in the office, since it could foment resentment of junior staff. They're already fomenting resentment by making a decision to force people back to work without any evidence to justify it. That's somehow better? BTW, I'm not saying they're wrong! They might be completely right. But to disregard individual experience while trusting management is measuring the right things is, frankly, pretty naive. The reality is management is as much about personal beliefs, gut instinct, and good ol' fashion tradition as anything else. I suspect it's far more likely that management at Google simply doesn't like the idea of fully remote employees, not based on any specific data points, but simply because that's their preference. But assuming that's true, it's better to simply admit that then to make pseudo-scientific arguments to justify those preexisting beliefs.
  - spoonjim 5y ago
    I agree that Google management made this decision mostly on gut feel. But I think that it aligns with my own gut feel, which is that it’s going to be very hard for a fully remote team to invent the next Waymo car or iPad or whatever, and I also think that it will be very hard for a junior engineer to get the same learning remotely as they do colocated with 20 year tenured engineers. If I was CEO of Google I would have made the same decision.
    - CarelessExpert 5y ago
      > I agree that Google management made this decision mostly on gut feel. But I think that it aligns with my own gut feel There's another term for that: Confirmation bias. That's fine, but let's not pretend your opinion is any more valid than anyone else's, including the individual employees who feel differently. The reality is no one, here, is actually basing their opinion on data. Absent that this is basically faith. Which is great 'cuz then we can all just agree to disagree. ;)
      - spoonjim 5y ago
        The difference is that the individual employee advocating for WFH is doing so because it’s better for them, not because it’s better for Google. The interests of capital and labor are not necessarily aligned here.
        CarelessExpert 5y ago
        Frankly, that makes me even more suspicious of any claims by either side that are not backed by data. Confirmation bias isn't a good basis for credulity.
- jahewson 5y ago
  > By what metric is Macbeth better than the Da Vinci Code? I like this question. Let’s say that we can create a list of 10 quantitative measures of the story, all binary and all comparative, e.g. which has the best pacing? which makes the best use of supporting characters? Now we can total up the answers and produce a number, e.g. Macbeth is better than the Da Vinci Code in 30% of our measures. You could repeat this process pair-wise with lots of books and produce a ranking.
  - spoonjim 5y ago
    Yes but “best pacing” again requires a judgment call, it’s not a numerical metric, and some things don’t add in a logical way (“The Big Lebowski” has almost no plot whatsoever but is an excellent film).
jeffbee 5y ago
Well, if I was going to pick one organization in my experience that I think is best able to judge developer productivity it would be google. They have a team of organizational analysts who study it and have developed a pretty sophisticated model. Interestingly, in past research they found that remote work is the top predictor of developer productivity.
- dcolkitt 5y ago
  > Interestingly, in past research they found that remote work is the top predictor of developer productivity. Positive or negative?
  - jeffbee 5y ago
    I don't want to misrepresent it, but my understanding is that an expressed preference for working remotely is consistently associated with high self-evaluation of productivity. The abstract says "our results also suggest that software developers’ self-rated productivity is more strongly related to task variety and ability to work remotely." https://storage.googleapis.com/pub-tools-public-publication-data/pdf/54eb17429fe4bce386a7db598d656b6a4a1bc749.pdf https://storage.googleapis.com/pub-tools-public-publication-...
- tsejerome97 5y ago
  any source tho?

spoonjim 5y ago

Not everything can be numerically measured. By what metric is Macbeth better than the Da Vinci Code? Also, not all measurements should be shared. Let’s say that they have data showing that new hire productivity and skill growth is much lower when senior engineers are WFH. They’re not going to share that data when forcing senior engineers to be in the office, since it could foment resentment of junior staff.

CarelessExpert 5y ago
> Not everything can be numerically measured. So then why shouldn't we trust individual experiences? What's the evidence that those reports are not reliable while management perceptions are if this stuff isn't measurable? > Let’s say that they have data showing that new hire productivity and skill growth is much lower when senior engineers are WFH. They’re not going to share that data when forcing senior engineers to be in the office, since it could foment resentment of junior staff. They're already fomenting resentment by making a decision to force people back to work without any evidence to justify it. That's somehow better? BTW, I'm not saying they're wrong! They might be completely right. But to disregard individual experience while trusting management is measuring the right things is, frankly, pretty naive. The reality is management is as much about personal beliefs, gut instinct, and good ol' fashion tradition as anything else. I suspect it's far more likely that management at Google simply doesn't like the idea of fully remote employees, not based on any specific data points, but simply because that's their preference. But assuming that's true, it's better to simply admit that then to make pseudo-scientific arguments to justify those preexisting beliefs.
- spoonjim 5y ago
  I agree that Google management made this decision mostly on gut feel. But I think that it aligns with my own gut feel, which is that it’s going to be very hard for a fully remote team to invent the next Waymo car or iPad or whatever, and I also think that it will be very hard for a junior engineer to get the same learning remotely as they do colocated with 20 year tenured engineers. If I was CEO of Google I would have made the same decision.
  - CarelessExpert 5y ago
    > I agree that Google management made this decision mostly on gut feel. But I think that it aligns with my own gut feel There's another term for that: Confirmation bias. That's fine, but let's not pretend your opinion is any more valid than anyone else's, including the individual employees who feel differently. The reality is no one, here, is actually basing their opinion on data. Absent that this is basically faith. Which is great 'cuz then we can all just agree to disagree. ;)
    - spoonjim 5y ago
      The difference is that the individual employee advocating for WFH is doing so because it’s better for them, not because it’s better for Google. The interests of capital and labor are not necessarily aligned here.
      - CarelessExpert 5y ago
        Frankly, that makes me even more suspicious of any claims by either side that are not backed by data. Confirmation bias isn't a good basis for credulity.
jahewson 5y ago
> By what metric is Macbeth better than the Da Vinci Code? I like this question. Let’s say that we can create a list of 10 quantitative measures of the story, all binary and all comparative, e.g. which has the best pacing? which makes the best use of supporting characters? Now we can total up the answers and produce a number, e.g. Macbeth is better than the Da Vinci Code in 30% of our measures. You could repeat this process pair-wise with lots of books and produce a ranking.
- spoonjim 5y ago
  Yes but “best pacing” again requires a judgment call, it’s not a numerical metric, and some things don’t add in a logical way (“The Big Lebowski” has almost no plot whatsoever but is an excellent film).

jeffbee 5y ago

Well, if I was going to pick one organization in my experience that I think is best able to judge developer productivity it would be google. They have a team of organizational analysts who study it and have developed a pretty sophisticated model. Interestingly, in past research they found that remote work is the top predictor of developer productivity.

dcolkitt 5y ago
> Interestingly, in past research they found that remote work is the top predictor of developer productivity. Positive or negative?
- jeffbee 5y ago
  I don't want to misrepresent it, but my understanding is that an expressed preference for working remotely is consistently associated with high self-evaluation of productivity. The abstract says "our results also suggest that software developers’ self-rated productivity is more strongly related to task variety and ability to work remotely." https://storage.googleapis.com/pub-tools-public-publication-data/pdf/54eb17429fe4bce386a7db598d656b6a4a1bc749.pdf https://storage.googleapis.com/pub-tools-public-publication-...
tsejerome97 5y ago
any source tho?