Ron stated the same concerns I had about this issue (albeit more eloquently ;) ) And I don't have any clear answers either, but I have noticed some recurring issue in all evaluation schemes: 1. A misunderstanding of what is important to measure/evaluate 2. When you do decide what you evaluate, the metrics often do not, in fact, measure what you want to know, 3. The use of feedback mechanisms are a mechanism for punishment rather than improvement.
Another area where this comes up is in standardized testing for students... for example MCAS if you live in MA... So, I suppose that I would want to know: - What are the criteria that define "good" performance. - How you are measuring how well people meet these criteria. - If someone falls short, what are you doing with that info. (And are you interested in blame or root causes...) Here's one story from "the early days" of my career.... I worked for a small company that got purchased by a larger company that had a pretty good (IMO) review process. One item in the review process was something like "demonstrates company values." One of these values was "assumption of good will" , ie: when someone does something, try to understand what they did from a position of them wanting to help, rather than in a negative fashion. I often puzzled about how you could actually claim that someone was doing negative things if you, yourself, followed the assumption of good will value .(OK, there were extreme cases, but in MANY cases negative interactions are as much due to the reciever of the message as the sender...) Anyway, the framework of this review process was good. But it was really hard to implement since you could not objectively measure "values" issues... Anyway, this is a tricky question, and I wonder how the answer would differ between places where: 1. The XP culture and value system is everywhere in the corporation and 2. There is a mismatch between the XP development team culture and the HR/Management culture. -Steve On Sat, 25 Dec 2004 14:46:55 -0500, Ron Jeffries <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On the one hand, I share many of the ideas you're working toward > here. On the other hand, I really don't think that all people are > equal and identical, and that makes me think that one person's > contribution to the team's goals may be substantially larger than > anothers's. > > Now yes, we can all come up with a story about the genius programmer > who creates millions of bugs while some quiet nebbish in the corner > fixes them all, making the genius's code actually work. In one > company, I can name those two people. > > And we can all come up with a story of some worker, who, though he > may no do much on his own, is such an effective pair partner that he > doubles the effectiveness of anyone he works with. (If Ward > Cunningham would stop doing things on his own, he could be that > person.) > > Yes, fine, it's hard to assess the value of the nebbish, or the pair > partner: none of our obvious metrics will detect them. > > Some people conclude that therefore we should not evaluate > individuals, only the team. OK, but then how do we set salary? > Should everyone in the company, from secretary to president, make > the same amount? Should everyone in the technical organization make > the same amount? Should it be based on age (I vote for that, > assuming linear upward) or number of degrees? Obviously, all unfair. > > On the other hand, if you're faced with cutting one person from the > team, you usually know who you'd cut. Sometimes it's a hard choice, > sometimes it's easy. Either way, you've just demonstrated a kind of > value ordering. > > I don't have an answer: I think it's a hard problem, and so far I've > not seen anything that I'd recommend unqualifiedly. -- Steve Berczuk | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://www.berczuk.com SCM Patterns: Effective Teamwork, Practical Integration www.scmpatterns.com To Post a message, send it to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ad-free courtesy of objectmentor.com Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/extremeprogramming/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
