3 ms·

I'd like to comment on goals for engineers in general: If your goal is X million users or some such end-user metric, you have created a goal for your salesmen,

by cjensen 13y ago

I'd like to comment on goals for engineers in general: If your goal is X million users or some such end-user metric, you have created a goal for your salesmen, not your engineers. An engineer cannot sign up a user, except indirectly through quality work. "X million users" is only indirectly under the control of the engineer: intermediates like sales or getting-the-word out are out of the engineer's control and can be screwed up by others. If the engineer does not get to pick his own features to work on, then the work he does do is limited by the wisdom of the person making assignments. In other word, a goal like this is discouraging for an engineer because he lacks serious control over whether or not the goal is accomplished. It is an anti-motivator. Instead, goals for engineers should be things directly under their control. Are you assigning specific features to the engineer? Getting a list of them done with high-quality solutions can be a goal since that is entirely under the engineer's control. Want to get your low-cost solution adopted? Set a goal for the engineer to reduce memory space by Z percent or improve performance by Y percent. Always make sure goal achievement is controlled as much as possible by the person receiving the goal.

mccr8 13y ago
There are more specific goals for engineering in other places, like the Platform quarterly goals: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Platform/2014-Q1-Goals https://wiki.mozilla.org/Platform/2014-Q1-Goals
- cjensen 13y ago
  Good. I wasn't sure who these goals were for, which is why I aimed my comments at a general target instead of Mozilla specifically.
- Goosey 13y ago
  Out of curiosity, does anyone know what "{{{1}}}" under Layout refers to? I found it a bit ungoogleable.
  - abrowne 13y ago
    I think that's a wiki syntax error. The wiki source[1] for that line is * {{ok|Ship input=number internationalization features }} [1]: https://wiki.mozilla.org/index.php?title=Platform/2014-Q1-Goals&action=edit https://wiki.mozilla.org/index.php?title=Platform/2014-Q1-Go...
daleharvey 13y ago
And speaking as an engineer working on this project, I was very happy to see X million users / end users metrics. I care whether the software I develop is used and enjoyed, its my primary motivation, the quality of the software and the technical health of the project have a huge bearing on whether people will use these it The goals are discussed and created by community members and employees, engineers and otherwise.
rhelmer 13y ago
It's already been addressed that individual teams at Mozilla have more specific goals with more actionable metrics, but in Mozilla's case I disagree that engineers cannot sign up users. Firefox didn't have a sales team to get its current marketshare. We do it in person for friends and family, we do it through discussion and diagnosing problems on hackernews and twitter etc. Source: I work in Mozilla engineering and I help people out online and offline with Firefox all the time, clear up misconceptions people have etc.
- camus2 13y ago
  Firefox succeed because it was so obvious to people that IE sucked, period. IE was a shitty product, MSFT did not care. Firefox with it's tabs,it's plugins was a natural choice for internet users.It was faster,more reliable and gave the best experience.No need for a sales team to promote that. By the way i think that without Mozilla there would have been no Google success story,but that's a discussion for another time...;) The envirronment is much more different today.
  - rhelmer 13y ago
    A lot of non-technical people use Firefox - somebody had to introduce them. If it was just about IE not being good and tabs, why not Opera? Mozilla had (and still has) a lot of people spreading the word - the Spread Firefox campaign was very popular, as was the crowdfunded New York Times ad: https://blog.mozilla.org/press/2004/12/mozilla-foundation-places-two-page-advocacy-ad-in-the-new-york-times/ https://blog.mozilla.org/press/2004/12/mozilla-foundation-pl...
corin_ 13y ago
Certainly those sorts of goals shouldn't be how engineers are judged (or worry that they'll be judged), and they should have their own KPIs. However, it's very beneficial for them to be included in the overall goals, as it can increase both their sense of purposes (why are their individual KPIs important?) and their sense of being a team (we're all working together to grow the userbase, not just the sales guys).

by cjensen 13y ago

mccr8 13y ago

There are more specific goals for engineering in other places, like the Platform quarterly goals: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Platform/2014-Q1-Goals https://wiki.mozilla.org/Platform/2014-Q1-Goals

cjensen 13y ago
Good. I wasn't sure who these goals were for, which is why I aimed my comments at a general target instead of Mozilla specifically.
Goosey 13y ago
Out of curiosity, does anyone know what "{{{1}}}" under Layout refers to? I found it a bit ungoogleable.
- abrowne 13y ago
  I think that's a wiki syntax error. The wiki source[1] for that line is * {{ok|Ship input=number internationalization features }} [1]: https://wiki.mozilla.org/index.php?title=Platform/2014-Q1-Goals&action=edit https://wiki.mozilla.org/index.php?title=Platform/2014-Q1-Go...

daleharvey 13y ago

And speaking as an engineer working on this project, I was very happy to see X million users / end users metrics. I care whether the software I develop is used and enjoyed, its my primary motivation, the quality of the software and the technical health of the project have a huge bearing on whether people will use these it The goals are discussed and created by community members and employees, engineers and otherwise.

rhelmer 13y ago

It's already been addressed that individual teams at Mozilla have more specific goals with more actionable metrics, but in Mozilla's case I disagree that engineers cannot sign up users. Firefox didn't have a sales team to get its current marketshare. We do it in person for friends and family, we do it through discussion and diagnosing problems on hackernews and twitter etc. Source: I work in Mozilla engineering and I help people out online and offline with Firefox all the time, clear up misconceptions people have etc.

camus2 13y ago
Firefox succeed because it was so obvious to people that IE sucked, period. IE was a shitty product, MSFT did not care. Firefox with it's tabs,it's plugins was a natural choice for internet users.It was faster,more reliable and gave the best experience.No need for a sales team to promote that. By the way i think that without Mozilla there would have been no Google success story,but that's a discussion for another time...;) The envirronment is much more different today.
- rhelmer 13y ago
  A lot of non-technical people use Firefox - somebody had to introduce them. If it was just about IE not being good and tabs, why not Opera? Mozilla had (and still has) a lot of people spreading the word - the Spread Firefox campaign was very popular, as was the crowdfunded New York Times ad: https://blog.mozilla.org/press/2004/12/mozilla-foundation-places-two-page-advocacy-ad-in-the-new-york-times/ https://blog.mozilla.org/press/2004/12/mozilla-foundation-pl...

corin_ 13y ago

Certainly those sorts of goals shouldn't be how engineers are judged (or worry that they'll be judged), and they should have their own KPIs. However, it's very beneficial for them to be included in the overall goals, as it can increase both their sense of purposes (why are their individual KPIs important?) and their sense of being a team (we're all working together to grow the userbase, not just the sales guys).