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Because it's a bogus argument. The productive person doesn't need a paper weight at lunch to act as a shower thought generator. Management can get it wrong some

Because it's a bogus argument. The productive person doesn't need a paper weight at lunch to act as a shower thought generator. Management can get it wrong sometimes, but in broad strokes, they're right.

closewith 3y ago
Maybe, or maybe human endeavour is more complex than individual efforts.
- 88913527 3y ago
  It's tough, but what I've seen is low performers weigh the team down. They constantly ask for the high performer's time, and if we give them bug tickets, new feature work, they constantly stumble and always report status as blocked. They don't add value. They can't get to the finish line with anything. It's not a kind thing to point out, but trying to angle it as "oh there's this other benefit you're just not seeing" is trying to work around the fact they can't competently fulfill the job function after exhausting all of our options (training, pair programming, etc). They might be friendly people, but the social boosts don't counteract the losses incurred, it's still a net loss.
  - jodrellblank 3y ago
    You've turned the story round from "Tim MacKinnon is a good programmer and asset to the team which the simple metrics were not tracking" into the strawman "defend people who cant do their jobs and are not an asset to the team by claiming that they are nice people".
willcipriano 3y ago
Idea people really overestimate their contributions.
mynameisvlad 3y ago
Define "productive". Because lins of code churned out is not and has never been a good measure of productivity. That "shower thought generator" might very well be more productive than the person they're sitting next to churning out tens of thousands of lines of unmaintainable code if their shower thoughts are causing people to find better ways to solve a problem. Which is basically the entire point of the article.
- 88913527 3y ago
  It's more about measuring outcomes. We have a goal, did we meet the goal. There are many paths to the goal, so measuring things like lines of code is incorrect. But so is measuring Bob's ability to ask Alice a good question. Management can't, at scale, consider such factors. We don't have the counterfactual where Bob didn't ask the questions, and Alice did great anyways. Performance reviews would become even more subjective if we had to place a value on the impact of asking questions. All forms of measurement are flawed, so I stick with outcomes.
  - mynameisvlad 3y ago
    > Management can't, at scale, consider such factors. Why not? Peer feedback is a prime component of most performance/rewards discussions at companies. Work outside of points is certainly not a new concept. A manager's job is to distill this information amongst others to their own management chain at the right time. > We don't have the counterfactual where Bob didn't ask the questions, and Alice did great anyways. Bob's time isn't unlimited. There are surely instances where he was helping out Joe, Suzie, Darren, and James and had no time for Alice. Based on your other comment, you seem to think someone being an unblocker/idea generator/dev lead is a "low performer" who weighs the team down. That's just fundamentally wrong.
    - 88913527 3y ago
      It isn't wrong, it's right; because pontification of things (in a vacuum) yields no results. I cannot sell my customers Bob's ideas. All I can sell them is software that does something. The people that can do this without needing Bobs around are the people that will be rewarded.

closewith 3y ago

Maybe, or maybe human endeavour is more complex than individual efforts.

88913527 3y ago
It's tough, but what I've seen is low performers weigh the team down. They constantly ask for the high performer's time, and if we give them bug tickets, new feature work, they constantly stumble and always report status as blocked. They don't add value. They can't get to the finish line with anything. It's not a kind thing to point out, but trying to angle it as "oh there's this other benefit you're just not seeing" is trying to work around the fact they can't competently fulfill the job function after exhausting all of our options (training, pair programming, etc). They might be friendly people, but the social boosts don't counteract the losses incurred, it's still a net loss.
- jodrellblank 3y ago
  You've turned the story round from "Tim MacKinnon is a good programmer and asset to the team which the simple metrics were not tracking" into the strawman "defend people who cant do their jobs and are not an asset to the team by claiming that they are nice people".

willcipriano 3y ago

Idea people really overestimate their contributions.

mynameisvlad 3y ago

Define "productive". Because lins of code churned out is not and has never been a good measure of productivity. That "shower thought generator" might very well be more productive than the person they're sitting next to churning out tens of thousands of lines of unmaintainable code if their shower thoughts are causing people to find better ways to solve a problem. Which is basically the entire point of the article.

88913527 3y ago
It's more about measuring outcomes. We have a goal, did we meet the goal. There are many paths to the goal, so measuring things like lines of code is incorrect. But so is measuring Bob's ability to ask Alice a good question. Management can't, at scale, consider such factors. We don't have the counterfactual where Bob didn't ask the questions, and Alice did great anyways. Performance reviews would become even more subjective if we had to place a value on the impact of asking questions. All forms of measurement are flawed, so I stick with outcomes.
- mynameisvlad 3y ago
  > Management can't, at scale, consider such factors. Why not? Peer feedback is a prime component of most performance/rewards discussions at companies. Work outside of points is certainly not a new concept. A manager's job is to distill this information amongst others to their own management chain at the right time. > We don't have the counterfactual where Bob didn't ask the questions, and Alice did great anyways. Bob's time isn't unlimited. There are surely instances where he was helping out Joe, Suzie, Darren, and James and had no time for Alice. Based on your other comment, you seem to think someone being an unblocker/idea generator/dev lead is a "low performer" who weighs the team down. That's just fundamentally wrong.
  - 88913527 3y ago
    It isn't wrong, it's right; because pontification of things (in a vacuum) yields no results. I cannot sell my customers Bob's ideas. All I can sell them is software that does something. The people that can do this without needing Bobs around are the people that will be rewarded.