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"grading on a curve" is a good idea, and if athletics wasn't run that way, nobody would watch. that doesn't mean it's easy to implement, manage, or impossible

"grading on a curve" is a good idea, and if athletics wasn't run that way, nobody would watch. that doesn't mean it's easy to implement, manage, or impossible to game, or that it plays nice wrt human factors, but to attack the core idea as essentially wrong is anti math, science, and rationality. Microsoft always suffered from rewarding egotists and political animals over people who did actual work.

GVIrish 2y ago
> but to attack the core idea as essentially wrong is anti math, science, and rationality The way Microsoft implemented stack ranking was anti math. You're supposed to measure the data then calculate the level of fit to a distribution, not artificially shoehorn the data into buckets to create the curve. If you analyze the data honestly you may find you have a bimodal distribution, or a heavily skewed distribution, who knows. Stack ranking just clumsily says, I'm gonna give x% a bad score, y% a middle score, and z% the top score.
- fsckboy 2y ago
  >Stack ranking just clumsily says, I'm gonna give x% a bad score, y% a middle score, and z% the top score. as long as the ordering top/middle/bad is preserved, I don't see a problem. there are entire respected statistic methods based on rank ordering, not raw metrics. People don't have a right to fall on a normal distribution. Employers do have a right to grow or trim the workforce, and those numbers are driven by factors that are not necessarily normally distributed. the people who downvote me simply want participation trophys, and "no" is the answer. You absolutely can argue that Microsoft pursued a system that hurt both Microsoft and its employees, but not by attacking rank ordering.
  - psunavy03 2y ago
    Ah, "participation trophies" and "if you disagree you're a snowflake." Took this long down the thread for the thought-terminating cliches to start flying around.
    - fsckboy 2y ago
      >Ah, "participation trophies" and "if you disagree you're a snowflake." actually, my comments have all been about math, and i gave an explanation as to why some people don't like the math. It's your comment that talks about snowflakes.
lesuorac 2y ago
Athletics is an actual competition where the expectation is that "you win". When you hire 12 baristas are they competing to make the most coffees or is their job to handle customer's orders? If their job isn't to compete with each other then don't stack rank them. Use other metrics like #of incorrect orders or w/e and decide what you think they should've done and if they did more than that give them a bonus. If they do less then maybe you need a new employee. > Microsoft always suffered from rewarding egotists and political animals over people who did actual work. That has nothing to do with grading on a curve. You can assign people to the top of a curve based on "egotist" criteria or based on "work". Nothing about a curve or stack ranking requires it to be based on "real work".
- randomdata 2y ago
  > When you hire 12 baristas are they competing to make the most coffees or is their job to handle customer's orders? Both? Handling customer orders is how the sport is played, but at the same time they are competing for the most points (money) in that gameplay.
  - lesuorac 2y ago
    So, all your baristas working a graveyard shift are going to be at the bottom of the stack ranking in terms of revenue/time. What do you now do?
    - randomdata 2y ago
      What do you do in athletics? Do you tell the kids (graveyard shift) they aren't allowed to participate in sports anymore because they can't compete with the big leagues (peak hours)? Probably not. More likely you would look at the different leagues individually. I'm surprised this idea is novel to you.
      - krisoft 2y ago
        > What do you do in athletics? Why do you talk about athletics? Baristas are not athletes. Coffee shops are not the olympics. You are stretching this analogy beyond its usefullness. > I'm surprised this idea is novel to you. Could you possibly express your thoughts without putting down others? Thank you. To address the meat of your comment. It sounds like you are proposing to grade the baristas working the bad shifts and the good shifts separately in different "leagues". The problem with that is that assumes that you are aware of all the factors which form the different leagues. If there are clear "night time" vs "daytime" barista groups that works. but if you just assign baristas as scheduling works out then you will realise that some people (randomly, and through no fault of their own) will be assigned to the slower shifts. Will you fire a perfectly good barista who is meeting the expectations of your establishment just because scheduling worked against them in that evaluation period? That is what stack ranking did in the case of microsoft.
sealeck 2y ago
> "grading on a curve" is a good idea, and if athletics wasn't run that way, nobody would watch. Good thing that enterprise software and athletics are different things!
psunavy03 2y ago
This is ridiculous. You grade people to a standard, not against each other. Stack ranking Jack Welch-style is basically operating under the assumption that if you had Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, Elon Musk, Satya Nadella, and Jeff Bezos on a team, that one of them would have to get a shitty grade and be fired. All it does is make true talent not want to work with other true talent for fear they get screwed over.
- fsckboy 2y ago
  >Stack ranking Jack Welch-style is basically operating under the assumption that if you had Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, Elon Musk, Satya Nadella, and Jeff Bezos on a team, that one of them would have to get a shitty grade and be fired. no, it's not, you are wrong. It is based on the probability that you will not have all those outliers on one team, a probability that is very very high. also, it's not used for teams of a dozen people where you can easily know everybody personally, it's used for teams of 1000 people, and Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, Elon Musk, Satya Nadella, and Jeff Bezos 'S jobs would all be safe (if they could get along with each other, which they couldn't, there'd be so much backstabbing productivity would grind to a halt :)
- rvba 2y ago
  Nadella didnt build anything though. He is there to outsource. Microsoft products start to feel cheap and buggy. But hey, they are probably made by people who are earn less.

GVIrish 2y ago

> but to attack the core idea as essentially wrong is anti math, science, and rationality The way Microsoft implemented stack ranking was anti math. You're supposed to measure the data then calculate the level of fit to a distribution, not artificially shoehorn the data into buckets to create the curve. If you analyze the data honestly you may find you have a bimodal distribution, or a heavily skewed distribution, who knows. Stack ranking just clumsily says, I'm gonna give x% a bad score, y% a middle score, and z% the top score.

fsckboy 2y ago
>Stack ranking just clumsily says, I'm gonna give x% a bad score, y% a middle score, and z% the top score. as long as the ordering top/middle/bad is preserved, I don't see a problem. there are entire respected statistic methods based on rank ordering, not raw metrics. People don't have a right to fall on a normal distribution. Employers do have a right to grow or trim the workforce, and those numbers are driven by factors that are not necessarily normally distributed. the people who downvote me simply want participation trophys, and "no" is the answer. You absolutely can argue that Microsoft pursued a system that hurt both Microsoft and its employees, but not by attacking rank ordering.
- psunavy03 2y ago
  Ah, "participation trophies" and "if you disagree you're a snowflake." Took this long down the thread for the thought-terminating cliches to start flying around.
  - fsckboy 2y ago
    >Ah, "participation trophies" and "if you disagree you're a snowflake." actually, my comments have all been about math, and i gave an explanation as to why some people don't like the math. It's your comment that talks about snowflakes.

lesuorac 2y ago

Athletics is an actual competition where the expectation is that "you win". When you hire 12 baristas are they competing to make the most coffees or is their job to handle customer's orders? If their job isn't to compete with each other then don't stack rank them. Use other metrics like #of incorrect orders or w/e and decide what you think they should've done and if they did more than that give them a bonus. If they do less then maybe you need a new employee. > Microsoft always suffered from rewarding egotists and political animals over people who did actual work. That has nothing to do with grading on a curve. You can assign people to the top of a curve based on "egotist" criteria or based on "work". Nothing about a curve or stack ranking requires it to be based on "real work".

randomdata 2y ago
> When you hire 12 baristas are they competing to make the most coffees or is their job to handle customer's orders? Both? Handling customer orders is how the sport is played, but at the same time they are competing for the most points (money) in that gameplay.
- lesuorac 2y ago
  So, all your baristas working a graveyard shift are going to be at the bottom of the stack ranking in terms of revenue/time. What do you now do?
  - randomdata 2y ago
    What do you do in athletics? Do you tell the kids (graveyard shift) they aren't allowed to participate in sports anymore because they can't compete with the big leagues (peak hours)? Probably not. More likely you would look at the different leagues individually. I'm surprised this idea is novel to you.
    - krisoft 2y ago
      > What do you do in athletics? Why do you talk about athletics? Baristas are not athletes. Coffee shops are not the olympics. You are stretching this analogy beyond its usefullness. > I'm surprised this idea is novel to you. Could you possibly express your thoughts without putting down others? Thank you. To address the meat of your comment. It sounds like you are proposing to grade the baristas working the bad shifts and the good shifts separately in different "leagues". The problem with that is that assumes that you are aware of all the factors which form the different leagues. If there are clear "night time" vs "daytime" barista groups that works. but if you just assign baristas as scheduling works out then you will realise that some people (randomly, and through no fault of their own) will be assigned to the slower shifts. Will you fire a perfectly good barista who is meeting the expectations of your establishment just because scheduling worked against them in that evaluation period? That is what stack ranking did in the case of microsoft.

sealeck 2y ago

> "grading on a curve" is a good idea, and if athletics wasn't run that way, nobody would watch. Good thing that enterprise software and athletics are different things!

psunavy03 2y ago

This is ridiculous. You grade people to a standard, not against each other. Stack ranking Jack Welch-style is basically operating under the assumption that if you had Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, Elon Musk, Satya Nadella, and Jeff Bezos on a team, that one of them would have to get a shitty grade and be fired. All it does is make true talent not want to work with other true talent for fear they get screwed over.

fsckboy 2y ago
>Stack ranking Jack Welch-style is basically operating under the assumption that if you had Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, Elon Musk, Satya Nadella, and Jeff Bezos on a team, that one of them would have to get a shitty grade and be fired. no, it's not, you are wrong. It is based on the probability that you will not have all those outliers on one team, a probability that is very very high. also, it's not used for teams of a dozen people where you can easily know everybody personally, it's used for teams of 1000 people, and Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, Elon Musk, Satya Nadella, and Jeff Bezos 'S jobs would all be safe (if they could get along with each other, which they couldn't, there'd be so much backstabbing productivity would grind to a halt :)
rvba 2y ago
Nadella didnt build anything though. He is there to outsource. Microsoft products start to feel cheap and buggy. But hey, they are probably made by people who are earn less.