5 ms·

Companies love to collect their data, and they love their AIs to analyze that data. But they ignore the easiest to collect data and the strongest AIs available;

Companies love to collect their data, and they love their AIs to analyze that data. But they ignore the easiest to collect data and the strongest AIs available; these AIs are so good you could just call them Is. I've always wanted to see regular anonymous mass surveys of employees, about things like project progress and completion dates. Do you want to know when a feature will be finished? You can analyze story points and build a fancy burn down chart, or you can just ask the people working on the feature. Allow the entire team to anonymously predict when the feature will be finished and I'll bet you get a better answer. Anonymity is important because people are easily pressured into changing their answers. We've all been asked "how long do you think this will take?". "Two months" you answer. Then managers pressure you into changing your answer, but usually, no matter what you're forced into saying, you still think it will take two months. Why did they ask if they didn't want my answer? Therein lies the truth. Companies don't want accurate answers and data, they want to see and hear what makes them happy right now. I don't think most companies would have the courage to regularly gather data with anonymous surveys. But maybe, if one clear-headed and high-level executive wanted to force it on the company, they could. They could mandate the use of a software tool to do anonymous surveys, and no matter how much lower-level managers complained, the team could still anonymously say when they actually believe the project will be finished. Etc.

junaru 2y ago
> no matter how much lower-level managers complained, the team could still anonymously say when they actually believe the project will be finished. Etc. This would result in lower tier managers announcing beforehand they claimed "x time for y project" and if the devs want their sickdays/bonuses/promotions they should claim same.
- Buttons840 2y ago
  The survey I'm imagining is just "rate the progress of project X from 1 to 10 (1 being just started, 10 being complete)"[0], and also "rate your happiness from 1 to 10", and "rate the quality of the work done from 1 to 10". This would be anonymous, the only thing that wouldn't be anonymous is whether or not an employee has updated their survey within the last 2 weeks. I would absolutely throw that hypothetical lower-tier manager you mentioned under the bus. The surveys could have a "rate your manager 1 to 10" question too. I think it would be valuable insight to all levels of management. If the team is being death marched, happiness and quality surveys would drop. Or, if you see a team deliver a buggy project, but quality surveys were high all throughout development, then you could tell that the team was incompetent and hire/fire/train accordingly. [0]: Don't ask people to guess completion dates, have them guess percent completed and then calculate completion dates in the software.
scruple 2y ago
We get supposed "anonymous" surveys where I work and I see the hash at the end of the URL, and we've confirmed amongst a few of us that they're unique, and so the assumption goes that it's actually not anonymous at all. I don't think I would ever trust an "anonymous survey" from an employer to actually be anonymous. Maybe if it was hand written.
- Buttons840 2y ago
  If the URLs had all been the same, then would you trust that it was anonymous? Employees could lie about their own happiness, and satisfaction with their manager, to their own detriment. Employees could also lie about project progress and quality, also to their own detriment, because it looks bad if a team says "everything is on track, quality is great", and then the project runs long and is a buggy mess. I just think a lot of what a manger does is give progress reports, and it's easy for one person to lie about progress reports, and then when it becomes clear that the progress reports were wrong all along, the manager somehow shifts blame to the workers. These surveys would give everyone a say in the progress reports.
  - scruple 2y ago
    I don't see how any deeply honest, earnest feedback can come from me when I am told "this is anonymous" and there's a 99.999999% chance that it isn't. If it came from a position of mutual respect then maybe I'd reciprocate, but it doesn't. It's hard for me to take any of this seriously. Industry-wide we're told layoffs have to happen and these same corporations go on to post record numbers, far exceeding internal and external expectations. Executives are lavished with bonuses while many of my colleagues are getting < 2% CoL adjustments while taking on more and more responsibility and accountability. But also, please, tell us what we can do better! We're listening and we care. So, no, frankly I don't feel like I owe my employer a single fucking thing beyond showing up, doing my work, and leaving. I certainly don't owe the top-level leadership team the truth when they aren't honest with me. But I want to make it clear, too, that I'm not lying on these surveys. But, they're not getting a full accountability from me, from my perspective, either. And even if I wanted to give that, it'd be pretty hard when the questions are worded in such specific, guided ways and there's very little space for providing direct feedback.
insom 2y ago
Shopify had this between ~2017 and ~2020 -- every project was expected to complete a "health check" every two weeks where anonymous participants gave a 1-3 score on various metrics including velocity, quality, making good decisions quickly etc. You couldn't see the scores until everyone had answered and there was cultural pressure towards honesty. All that was stored was the average score and optional comments. If you left comments, it was generally possible to figure out who said what based on idioms etc. but they were kept separate from the scores anyway. I thought it was a good system but I'm pretty sure it was gone by the time I left in 2023. If nothing else, I don't think a system based on that kind of radical candor can survive the first or second round of layoffs at any company.
mdgrech23 2y ago
This is exactly why deadlines in tech are such bullshit. It's my personal experience that more times than not I'm told the deadline as opposed to us reaching some kind of agreement. It's reasons like that that I have hard time taking it seriously when I'm told we're late. It's more like you're "estimate" was wrong or you demanded completion date was too aggressive.

junaru 2y ago

> no matter how much lower-level managers complained, the team could still anonymously say when they actually believe the project will be finished. Etc. This would result in lower tier managers announcing beforehand they claimed "x time for y project" and if the devs want their sickdays/bonuses/promotions they should claim same.

Buttons840 2y ago
The survey I'm imagining is just "rate the progress of project X from 1 to 10 (1 being just started, 10 being complete)"[0], and also "rate your happiness from 1 to 10", and "rate the quality of the work done from 1 to 10". This would be anonymous, the only thing that wouldn't be anonymous is whether or not an employee has updated their survey within the last 2 weeks. I would absolutely throw that hypothetical lower-tier manager you mentioned under the bus. The surveys could have a "rate your manager 1 to 10" question too. I think it would be valuable insight to all levels of management. If the team is being death marched, happiness and quality surveys would drop. Or, if you see a team deliver a buggy project, but quality surveys were high all throughout development, then you could tell that the team was incompetent and hire/fire/train accordingly. [0]: Don't ask people to guess completion dates, have them guess percent completed and then calculate completion dates in the software.

scruple 2y ago

We get supposed "anonymous" surveys where I work and I see the hash at the end of the URL, and we've confirmed amongst a few of us that they're unique, and so the assumption goes that it's actually not anonymous at all. I don't think I would ever trust an "anonymous survey" from an employer to actually be anonymous. Maybe if it was hand written.

Buttons840 2y ago
If the URLs had all been the same, then would you trust that it was anonymous? Employees could lie about their own happiness, and satisfaction with their manager, to their own detriment. Employees could also lie about project progress and quality, also to their own detriment, because it looks bad if a team says "everything is on track, quality is great", and then the project runs long and is a buggy mess. I just think a lot of what a manger does is give progress reports, and it's easy for one person to lie about progress reports, and then when it becomes clear that the progress reports were wrong all along, the manager somehow shifts blame to the workers. These surveys would give everyone a say in the progress reports.
- scruple 2y ago
  I don't see how any deeply honest, earnest feedback can come from me when I am told "this is anonymous" and there's a 99.999999% chance that it isn't. If it came from a position of mutual respect then maybe I'd reciprocate, but it doesn't. It's hard for me to take any of this seriously. Industry-wide we're told layoffs have to happen and these same corporations go on to post record numbers, far exceeding internal and external expectations. Executives are lavished with bonuses while many of my colleagues are getting < 2% CoL adjustments while taking on more and more responsibility and accountability. But also, please, tell us what we can do better! We're listening and we care. So, no, frankly I don't feel like I owe my employer a single fucking thing beyond showing up, doing my work, and leaving. I certainly don't owe the top-level leadership team the truth when they aren't honest with me. But I want to make it clear, too, that I'm not lying on these surveys. But, they're not getting a full accountability from me, from my perspective, either. And even if I wanted to give that, it'd be pretty hard when the questions are worded in such specific, guided ways and there's very little space for providing direct feedback.

insom 2y ago

Shopify had this between ~2017 and ~2020 -- every project was expected to complete a "health check" every two weeks where anonymous participants gave a 1-3 score on various metrics including velocity, quality, making good decisions quickly etc. You couldn't see the scores until everyone had answered and there was cultural pressure towards honesty. All that was stored was the average score and optional comments. If you left comments, it was generally possible to figure out who said what based on idioms etc. but they were kept separate from the scores anyway. I thought it was a good system but I'm pretty sure it was gone by the time I left in 2023. If nothing else, I don't think a system based on that kind of radical candor can survive the first or second round of layoffs at any company.

mdgrech23 2y ago

This is exactly why deadlines in tech are such bullshit. It's my personal experience that more times than not I'm told the deadline as opposed to us reaching some kind of agreement. It's reasons like that that I have hard time taking it seriously when I'm told we're late. It's more like you're "estimate" was wrong or you demanded completion date was too aggressive.