As far as I know, stack ranking was first used, and with good success, by law firms. The thing is, the people being evaluated that way were on a career track to

As far as I know, stack ranking was first used, and with good success, by law firms. The thing is, the people being evaluated that way were on a career track to become partners in the firm, and as such they were evaluated by peers or rather future peers. Doing that with artists, writers, programmers and testers who have no expectation of eventually becoming board members and major shareholders is a whole different story and makes no sense.