How can we enable managers to better evaluate developer performance?

2 pointserdinc4y ago3 comments

We are building a SaaS tool to improve engineering teams' productivity by providing autonomy with real-time notifications.We have made more than 50 interviews with engineering managers from different organization cultures.

Interviews revealed common patterns,

- performance/productivity mostly relies on intrinsic evaluation.

- managers mostly focused on sprint success where developers focused on building flawless products.

There are more patterns we identified but not related to this question(I can share them if you want).

"intrinsic evaluation" and "building flawless products" are my key terms so,

Developers wants to build flawless products.

Managers need to reach sprint success.

Two different perspectives.

To align those, most developers put in extra efforts (long working hours, no weekends, etc.), which leads to burnout.Not every manager has the same experience managing teams, so extra efforts either seem natural to them or aren't seen.

So my question is,

how might we address those unseen efforts while productivity/performance is evaluated on intrinsic feelings?

3 comments

austincheney4y ago

It’s not about the long hours or hard work. Those are the quantifiers for when you have nothing else to quantify, so completely remove that from any kind of evaluation. Worse, I would argue that hard work is counter productive. If employee A works twice as hard to deliver the same as employee B they are half as valuable.

To be fair to your employees, such that bias and impartiality don’t rule the day, you have to quantify something. There are the minimum things like story completion and number of resolved defects and then there are the advanced things like original solution delivery that was not asked for. Original solution delivery should do one of two things: reduce expenses or suggest a new line of business.

faangiq4y ago

What makes you think managers care about this?

erdincOP4y ago

Their own statements?

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