KPIs - Good for anything at all?
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I have worked, mainly in IT, for 35+ years. In that time I have had a lot of jobs, everything from small one-man businesses to large multinationals, from government to entertainment. In many of those positions, it was deemed necessary to have KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). Some companies took it more seriously than others, some provided them, some I had to provide to them, and then justify. All, without any exception whatsoever, were a complete and utter waste of my time. Everyone I have spoken to says the same thing. I have never met anyone, with the exception of HR personnel, who believe KPIs (certainly in the software development industry) to be a good thing. So I thought I'd ask you jolly Loungers - Any positive experiences of using KPIs? (obviously the reason for this post is that the company I am now working for have decided that we need to develop some KPIs for the devs. I'm clinging to the hope that there's a reason beyond the fact that they just hired a new HR person.)
Well, it depends on what kind of KPIs we are talking about... Good KPIs should: 1. say something useful 2. should mean something 3. be automated 4. show status of process not performance of single person. So, KPIs like: lines of code/day, closed user stories, issued resolved, bugs reopened, etc. are not good KPIs. Why? They say nothing meaningful. But they are quite easy to maintain. ;) Recently after a year of research I came up with these KPIs for SCRUM process: 1. WIN/LOSE - are we under or over burndown target today? 2. DISCIPLINE - are "completed" hours reported daily in amount matching capacity? 3. ESTIMATION - hours estimated/hours total 4. PLANNING - do we have enough tasks (hours) planned to fill the capacity? All data is pulled from TFS - there is no extra time required to complete the "dashboard". These KPIs will be shown as total - sum for whole team. As SCRUM master I monitor also these KPIs for individual developers - to see for example who exactly is failing with disciplined reporting. Other KPIs are just for me - for example PLANNING: if this is red, this usually means the Product Owner failed to deliver stories, not that one of team members failed to do something. And finally - HR does not look at the KPIs. I look at them and decide case by case what to do to correct the situation. HR look at the yearly performance review made by superiors, where the main factor is not KPIs but the completion of personal goals....
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I have worked, mainly in IT, for 35+ years. In that time I have had a lot of jobs, everything from small one-man businesses to large multinationals, from government to entertainment. In many of those positions, it was deemed necessary to have KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). Some companies took it more seriously than others, some provided them, some I had to provide to them, and then justify. All, without any exception whatsoever, were a complete and utter waste of my time. Everyone I have spoken to says the same thing. I have never met anyone, with the exception of HR personnel, who believe KPIs (certainly in the software development industry) to be a good thing. So I thought I'd ask you jolly Loungers - Any positive experiences of using KPIs? (obviously the reason for this post is that the company I am now working for have decided that we need to develop some KPIs for the devs. I'm clinging to the hope that there's a reason beyond the fact that they just hired a new HR person.)
We have them presented at our monthly meeting but mostly it's support related such as which customers are in the top 10 of asking for help they're not entitled to. The results are not overly memorable but do give an interesting fly-by who the villains of the last month have been. We don't have many in the line of development so we're generally left to get on with things. I'd not be happy having to do them just to satiate the pointless demands of HR.
If there is one thing more dangerous than getting between a bear and her cubs it's getting between my wife and her chocolate.
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I would be the first to agree with you..The company currently I am working have provided with a set of KPIs which are totally bu** sh*t and are not at all quanitifiable..I am not sure how this crap is being used to evaluate the performance of a employee....
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Seriously Sir, how can you make such a claim without quantitavely having measured the amount of bu** sh*t to support your statement! :omg: :omg: :omg:
Life is too shor
The point is the KPIs not measurable...and it does not provide a meaning to the work we currently do...
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I have worked, mainly in IT, for 35+ years. In that time I have had a lot of jobs, everything from small one-man businesses to large multinationals, from government to entertainment. In many of those positions, it was deemed necessary to have KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). Some companies took it more seriously than others, some provided them, some I had to provide to them, and then justify. All, without any exception whatsoever, were a complete and utter waste of my time. Everyone I have spoken to says the same thing. I have never met anyone, with the exception of HR personnel, who believe KPIs (certainly in the software development industry) to be a good thing. So I thought I'd ask you jolly Loungers - Any positive experiences of using KPIs? (obviously the reason for this post is that the company I am now working for have decided that we need to develop some KPIs for the devs. I'm clinging to the hope that there's a reason beyond the fact that they just hired a new HR person.)
There is a desire to measure everything in the world, to put a figure on quality and show it in a nice graph. I blame computers for making it so easy to do such things. All this performance measuring crap is unnecessary and counter-productive if you have good managers you can trust. In most places managers have no real skill for the job, or desire for it beyond more money.
Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.
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I have worked, mainly in IT, for 35+ years. In that time I have had a lot of jobs, everything from small one-man businesses to large multinationals, from government to entertainment. In many of those positions, it was deemed necessary to have KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). Some companies took it more seriously than others, some provided them, some I had to provide to them, and then justify. All, without any exception whatsoever, were a complete and utter waste of my time. Everyone I have spoken to says the same thing. I have never met anyone, with the exception of HR personnel, who believe KPIs (certainly in the software development industry) to be a good thing. So I thought I'd ask you jolly Loungers - Any positive experiences of using KPIs? (obviously the reason for this post is that the company I am now working for have decided that we need to develop some KPIs for the devs. I'm clinging to the hope that there's a reason beyond the fact that they just hired a new HR person.)
Performance metrics can be useful if you can easily define and measure a meaningful definition of 'performance'. That's generally not true in software development (and some metrics, like lines of code or number of issues solved, actively lead to bad code or bad development practice).
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Well, it depends on what kind of KPIs we are talking about... Good KPIs should: 1. say something useful 2. should mean something 3. be automated 4. show status of process not performance of single person. So, KPIs like: lines of code/day, closed user stories, issued resolved, bugs reopened, etc. are not good KPIs. Why? They say nothing meaningful. But they are quite easy to maintain. ;) Recently after a year of research I came up with these KPIs for SCRUM process: 1. WIN/LOSE - are we under or over burndown target today? 2. DISCIPLINE - are "completed" hours reported daily in amount matching capacity? 3. ESTIMATION - hours estimated/hours total 4. PLANNING - do we have enough tasks (hours) planned to fill the capacity? All data is pulled from TFS - there is no extra time required to complete the "dashboard". These KPIs will be shown as total - sum for whole team. As SCRUM master I monitor also these KPIs for individual developers - to see for example who exactly is failing with disciplined reporting. Other KPIs are just for me - for example PLANNING: if this is red, this usually means the Product Owner failed to deliver stories, not that one of team members failed to do something. And finally - HR does not look at the KPIs. I look at them and decide case by case what to do to correct the situation. HR look at the yearly performance review made by superiors, where the main factor is not KPIs but the completion of personal goals....
That's the thing, isn't it? You're 'managing' the team by making yourself aware of the project situation - that doesn't require each team member to even be aware of the KPIs - because as a good man-manager, you will make them aware of their expectations and regularly keep them notified if they are meeting them or not - doesn't need a 6 page form to do that!
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There is a desire to measure everything in the world, to put a figure on quality and show it in a nice graph. I blame computers for making it so easy to do such things. All this performance measuring crap is unnecessary and counter-productive if you have good managers you can trust. In most places managers have no real skill for the job, or desire for it beyond more money.
Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.
chriselst wrote:
f you have good managers
exactly my POV. When I managed a team of devs, I knew what they were working on, how long I estimated it would take, and whether they were slacking off or working hard. I also knew how many kids they had, what their birthdays were, what their partner did etc. I took an interest, and I cared. When it got to annual review time, they knew whether they had been doing well or not (they were always doing pretty well, frankly) and we didn't need graphs and charts because we fucking well spoke to each other!
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I have worked, mainly in IT, for 35+ years. In that time I have had a lot of jobs, everything from small one-man businesses to large multinationals, from government to entertainment. In many of those positions, it was deemed necessary to have KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). Some companies took it more seriously than others, some provided them, some I had to provide to them, and then justify. All, without any exception whatsoever, were a complete and utter waste of my time. Everyone I have spoken to says the same thing. I have never met anyone, with the exception of HR personnel, who believe KPIs (certainly in the software development industry) to be a good thing. So I thought I'd ask you jolly Loungers - Any positive experiences of using KPIs? (obviously the reason for this post is that the company I am now working for have decided that we need to develop some KPIs for the devs. I'm clinging to the hope that there's a reason beyond the fact that they just hired a new HR person.)
Just yesterday, I went through my annual self-assessment thingie and marked myself as expert at everything...so they'll leave me the ferk alone for another year, rather than plop out a list of "classes" I would need to take to improve myself.
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The point is the KPIs not measurable...and it does not provide a meaning to the work we currently do...
Man, I was joking! I totally agree that that this business of corporate "measuring" everything has gone way over the top. I do no subscribe to the tradition of going smile-smile-wink-wink for every joke. People used to do that in the 90's. IMHO, part of the fun is agreeing without being over-explicit. And yes, I know I take a risk when omitting the ;) :beer: :beer: to that ! Adam
Life is too shor
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Performance metrics can be useful if you can easily define and measure a meaningful definition of 'performance'. That's generally not true in software development (and some metrics, like lines of code or number of issues solved, actively lead to bad code or bad development practice).
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Man, I was joking! I totally agree that that this business of corporate "measuring" everything has gone way over the top. I do no subscribe to the tradition of going smile-smile-wink-wink for every joke. People used to do that in the 90's. IMHO, part of the fun is agreeing without being over-explicit. And yes, I know I take a risk when omitting the ;) :beer: :beer: to that ! Adam
Life is too shor
Atleast last time they had given some KPIs that can be quantified..but this time its serious shit...no idea who framed it...but its total shit!!!