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Used to be bitten by stuff like this until I figured out something Tim and this author apparently didn’t - the problem is trivially fixed by management by attac

Used to be bitten by stuff like this until I figured out something Tim and this author apparently didn’t - the problem is trivially fixed by management by attaching tim’s name to any tickets he may have helped out on. he can ask his teammates to do this and they gladly will, or, nice teammates will usually throw a “figured this out with the help of @Tim” in the ticket. goes a long way to keep “tim” on your team against obtuse velocity metrics like this. productivity metrics aren’t entirely worthless. if I come into a team, for instance, and I see they have 1 PR mapped to roughly every 1 jira ticket, and I see a guy on a 3 person team that’s got 70% of the PR’s in a year, that isn’t a clueless piece of info. he’s probably the lead. not always, and people game stuff like this, but it is a data point you can make note of.

Clubber 2y ago
You're absolutely right, but some people just refuse to play silly games. It's odd that the manager isn't ever in the room with the team and doesn't understand his team's dynamics. Giving the benefit of the doubt, he must have been new, but any manager worth his salt will ask people on their team what the team dynamics are.
- BigGreenJorts 2y ago
  My understanding is that metricizing like this is a tangible way for managers to defend "underperforming" team members to upper management. Your manager can always say you're a valuable member of the team and that will certainly go quite a way, but it's even more powerful if your manager can say, XYZ is an I valuable team member, if you need evidence of that, they provide a lot of value in supportive roles like on these tickets. [Listing tickets].
- throwaway7783 2y ago
  Agree on silly games, but this is simply acknowledging others' contributions. I think this should be encouraged in general, metrics or not
  - Clubber 2y ago
    I agree. I think it's pretty absurd that the manager was all set to fire him just based on metrics. There's a quote that I'm going to horribly paraphrase that goes like, "when you can measure something, that ends up being the only thing that matters." At least he asked the author his opinion first. Having said all that, if he took it upon himself to be a mentor to other developers and didn't do any tickets himself, that seems a bit odd, unless it was explicitly decided/communicated that would be his role. I would think roles like that are half time mentoring and half time doing tickets, but I don't know enough about the team to judge it. Like I said, I'm assuming the manager was new to the team.
motorest 2y ago
> the problem is trivially fixed by management by attaching tim’s name to any tickets he may have helped out on. I don't think this comes even close to solving the problem. This in fact makes the problem worse, because a) you admit the metric is shit and does not reflect work, b) you opt to keep the bullshit metric but instead try to manipulate it to bump the score under some scenario. That's not desirable outcome by any metric. In the end you're building up a system where everyone participating in it knows it's a fraude but just keep gaming it because they become too heavily invested in it.
- throwaway7783 2y ago
  While a number measuring productivity may not work, I read the GP as simply recording contributions. I like that approach. Now you can not only have peer recommendations, but also tangible records.
  - JohnMakin 2y ago
    In large org, i saw people quietly move up the ladder this way by being visibly effective even if their outright contributions may have been difficult for nontechnical or understaffed management teams can see. it’s an essential survival skill, not making any case whether or not it’s right to begin with - I often navigate these systems because I have to. you will of course have people gaming the system but peers tend to realize what is happening there, and that’s a management problem IMHO
- bberenberg 2y ago
  I don’t think anyone is saying it’s a good solution. It’s one amongst many bad ones that are used because that’s what we have. For example, I’ve been running a remote team for 8ish years now and I keep begging people to have conversations in public channels. One of the reasons is to see who’s spending a lot of time lending a hand. Guess what, devs refuse to do that. So what am I supposed to do? I have a person who I highly suspect isn’t doing much work, and is basically rotating through other team members to help him get unstuck. Not a bad guy, but probably not up to our standards. Just ask people you say? Many cultures don’t allow for someone to say bad things about their coworker even if it would help to improve the team. I’m not arguing for any one solution because I don’t know of any magical solution. If you have better metrics or management skills than what everyone in the world has figured out, myself and many others would gladly adopt these approaches.
JTbane 2y ago
That doesn't work with automated metrics, whomever is assigned the work item gets all the points.
dedup 2y ago
That's how you get individuals who insist that you attach their name to your ticket (or better yet, do it themselves) after they helpfully inform you about an automated test failure in your commit. "Relentlessly mentoring team members on culture of quality" et cetera.
- compiler-guy 2y ago
  Exactly. If you don’t consider how people might game the system, you are in trouble. Little fixes like this open other possibilities for gamesmanship and now people fight over whether their contribution was good enough to be included in the ticket.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  I mean, all of this is gamable by those who want to minmax. But this is a workplace and those kinds of abuses can be solved with a slap on the wrist 80% of the time.
ryandrake 2y ago
I'm actually shocked that Tim, himself, knowing the metric exists and was going to be used in firing decisions, did not attach himself to all these tickets in the first place. Talk about a lack of self-preservation. Everywhere I've seen that measures performance by some metric, everyone instinctively tries to pump that metric all by themselves. No other motivation required.
- neilv 2y ago
  Not everyone will play the metrics games. Some people will just find the metrics dumb and depressing, and avoid them. (As might've happened in the article.) Some assume it will go away in time, or that their manager will cover for them. (As eventually happened in the article.) Some have behind-the-scenes talks with managers+execs+HR, to end bad metrics. Some will melt the metrics with the intensity of their look of disapproval. (Management ProTip: this level of will is better harnessed to solve business and engineering problems.)
  - ModernMech 2y ago
    Yup, I didn't play the metrics game, and I got burned because my metrics don't look as good against the co-worker who plays the game. The cost is having to remind everyone how much work you actually get done and how much you actually support the team when those "your metrics tell us you're not doing enough" talks come up.
    - ryandrake 2y ago
      I've resigned myself to the reality that every employer is basically the same in this regard. You need to be spending 25-50% of your time doing your actual work and 50-75% of the time doing all that political and self-promotion and metrics-chasing work so that you can "show your impact" or whatever the hell your company calls it. This has been the case at literally every job I've ever had. If you just go in as an expert and do the technical work you were hired to do 100%, you're going to have a bad time career-wise.
      - 2y ago
mrweasel 2y ago
That's an intersting point. I don't recall ever seeing a ticketing system where you could assign a ticket to multiple people.
- dedup 2y ago
  In one of the systems I worked with each ticket had an "assignee" (who did most of the work), a "tech lead" (who knew what's going on and could provide status and guidance), and an "executive owner" (the person you'd escalate to if needed). I suspect those were custom fields and schema could be extended further if desired.
MarcusE1W 2y ago
In football you track not only the goal scorers but also the assist (the person who passed the ball to he goal scorer). That still does not cover all contributions, but maybe that's a way to create more transparency for Tims case ?
szundi 2y ago
[dead]
TheRealPomax 2y ago
Both "trivially" and "fixed" are doing an incredible amount of heavy lifting here.
thr0waway001 2y ago
Ah, the "Quentin Tarantino presents" pattern. Nice.
natnatenathan 2y ago
Tim's problem is that he has a bad manager. One of a manager's core jobs is to communicate upwards the value that each team member is providing (or not providing). His job was to ensure that Tim's contribution were reflected and visible.
- stronglikedan 2y ago
  According to TFA, that's exactly what the manager did.

Clubber 2y ago

You're absolutely right, but some people just refuse to play silly games. It's odd that the manager isn't ever in the room with the team and doesn't understand his team's dynamics. Giving the benefit of the doubt, he must have been new, but any manager worth his salt will ask people on their team what the team dynamics are.

BigGreenJorts 2y ago
My understanding is that metricizing like this is a tangible way for managers to defend "underperforming" team members to upper management. Your manager can always say you're a valuable member of the team and that will certainly go quite a way, but it's even more powerful if your manager can say, XYZ is an I valuable team member, if you need evidence of that, they provide a lot of value in supportive roles like on these tickets. [Listing tickets].
throwaway7783 2y ago
Agree on silly games, but this is simply acknowledging others' contributions. I think this should be encouraged in general, metrics or not
- Clubber 2y ago
  I agree. I think it's pretty absurd that the manager was all set to fire him just based on metrics. There's a quote that I'm going to horribly paraphrase that goes like, "when you can measure something, that ends up being the only thing that matters." At least he asked the author his opinion first. Having said all that, if he took it upon himself to be a mentor to other developers and didn't do any tickets himself, that seems a bit odd, unless it was explicitly decided/communicated that would be his role. I would think roles like that are half time mentoring and half time doing tickets, but I don't know enough about the team to judge it. Like I said, I'm assuming the manager was new to the team.

motorest 2y ago

> the problem is trivially fixed by management by attaching tim’s name to any tickets he may have helped out on. I don't think this comes even close to solving the problem. This in fact makes the problem worse, because a) you admit the metric is shit and does not reflect work, b) you opt to keep the bullshit metric but instead try to manipulate it to bump the score under some scenario. That's not desirable outcome by any metric. In the end you're building up a system where everyone participating in it knows it's a fraude but just keep gaming it because they become too heavily invested in it.

throwaway7783 2y ago
While a number measuring productivity may not work, I read the GP as simply recording contributions. I like that approach. Now you can not only have peer recommendations, but also tangible records.
- JohnMakin 2y ago
  In large org, i saw people quietly move up the ladder this way by being visibly effective even if their outright contributions may have been difficult for nontechnical or understaffed management teams can see. it’s an essential survival skill, not making any case whether or not it’s right to begin with - I often navigate these systems because I have to. you will of course have people gaming the system but peers tend to realize what is happening there, and that’s a management problem IMHO
bberenberg 2y ago
I don’t think anyone is saying it’s a good solution. It’s one amongst many bad ones that are used because that’s what we have. For example, I’ve been running a remote team for 8ish years now and I keep begging people to have conversations in public channels. One of the reasons is to see who’s spending a lot of time lending a hand. Guess what, devs refuse to do that. So what am I supposed to do? I have a person who I highly suspect isn’t doing much work, and is basically rotating through other team members to help him get unstuck. Not a bad guy, but probably not up to our standards. Just ask people you say? Many cultures don’t allow for someone to say bad things about their coworker even if it would help to improve the team. I’m not arguing for any one solution because I don’t know of any magical solution. If you have better metrics or management skills than what everyone in the world has figured out, myself and many others would gladly adopt these approaches.

JTbane 2y ago

That doesn't work with automated metrics, whomever is assigned the work item gets all the points.

dedup 2y ago

That's how you get individuals who insist that you attach their name to your ticket (or better yet, do it themselves) after they helpfully inform you about an automated test failure in your commit. "Relentlessly mentoring team members on culture of quality" et cetera.

compiler-guy 2y ago
Exactly. If you don’t consider how people might game the system, you are in trouble. Little fixes like this open other possibilities for gamesmanship and now people fight over whether their contribution was good enough to be included in the ticket.
johnnyanmac 2y ago
I mean, all of this is gamable by those who want to minmax. But this is a workplace and those kinds of abuses can be solved with a slap on the wrist 80% of the time.

ryandrake 2y ago

I'm actually shocked that Tim, himself, knowing the metric exists and was going to be used in firing decisions, did not attach himself to all these tickets in the first place. Talk about a lack of self-preservation. Everywhere I've seen that measures performance by some metric, everyone instinctively tries to pump that metric all by themselves. No other motivation required.

neilv 2y ago
Not everyone will play the metrics games. Some people will just find the metrics dumb and depressing, and avoid them. (As might've happened in the article.) Some assume it will go away in time, or that their manager will cover for them. (As eventually happened in the article.) Some have behind-the-scenes talks with managers+execs+HR, to end bad metrics. Some will melt the metrics with the intensity of their look of disapproval. (Management ProTip: this level of will is better harnessed to solve business and engineering problems.)
- ModernMech 2y ago
  Yup, I didn't play the metrics game, and I got burned because my metrics don't look as good against the co-worker who plays the game. The cost is having to remind everyone how much work you actually get done and how much you actually support the team when those "your metrics tell us you're not doing enough" talks come up.
  - ryandrake 2y ago
    I've resigned myself to the reality that every employer is basically the same in this regard. You need to be spending 25-50% of your time doing your actual work and 50-75% of the time doing all that political and self-promotion and metrics-chasing work so that you can "show your impact" or whatever the hell your company calls it. This has been the case at literally every job I've ever had. If you just go in as an expert and do the technical work you were hired to do 100%, you're going to have a bad time career-wise.
    - 2y ago

mrweasel 2y ago

That's an intersting point. I don't recall ever seeing a ticketing system where you could assign a ticket to multiple people.

dedup 2y ago
In one of the systems I worked with each ticket had an "assignee" (who did most of the work), a "tech lead" (who knew what's going on and could provide status and guidance), and an "executive owner" (the person you'd escalate to if needed). I suspect those were custom fields and schema could be extended further if desired.

MarcusE1W 2y ago

In football you track not only the goal scorers but also the assist (the person who passed the ball to he goal scorer). That still does not cover all contributions, but maybe that's a way to create more transparency for Tims case ?

szundi 2y ago

[dead]

TheRealPomax 2y ago

Both "trivially" and "fixed" are doing an incredible amount of heavy lifting here.

thr0waway001 2y ago

Ah, the "Quentin Tarantino presents" pattern. Nice.

natnatenathan 2y ago

Tim's problem is that he has a bad manager. One of a manager's core jobs is to communicate upwards the value that each team member is providing (or not providing). His job was to ensure that Tim's contribution were reflected and visible.

stronglikedan 2y ago
According to TFA, that's exactly what the manager did.