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Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

mtlynch.io

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Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#141

Post by trashcan »

dahart wrote: post #29

> I drastically reduced the time developers spent repairing those failures, but there were no metrics that tracked developer time. For several jobs in a row, I've felt that helping others on a team is undervalued and under-recorded. I've been planning to implement the "assist" metric, similar to basketball, on my own team for a while. The idea would be something along the lines of everyone gets a set of assist points…

The company I work for has a kudos system. You can give any gift, but in practice everyone gives $25 amazon gift cards since they are almost cash. Employees are encouraged to give at least one a month to someone who deserves it. I haven't been through a performance review yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if they are taken into consideration.

From my experience it works amazingly well. It's silly, but if you are ever having self-doubt, a gift card from a coworker really helps.

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#142

Post by ChuckMcM »

lhorie wrote: post #119
dahart wrote: post #29

> I drastically reduced the time developers spent repairing those failures, but there were no metrics that tracked developer time. For several jobs in a row, I've felt that helping others on a team is undervalued and under-recorded. I've been planning to implement the "assist" metric, similar to basketball, on my own team for a while. The idea would be something along the lines of everyone gets a set of assist points…

In a previous company, there was a feature in the intranet to give kudos to other people. Everyone in the company could see a kudo as a post in the global intranet "chat" sidebar (not really chat, more like a communal facebook wall of sorts that would bump posts to the top any time anyone commented on them) You could give as many kudos as you wanted, and it had zero impact on performance appraisal/raises, but it sure…

I think I may have seen a system like that, it had a sort of bluish tint to it :-).

Its interesting that throughout my career I've found it has been challenging to communicate group and individual contribution in meaningful ways to people without the whole picture. That is especially true when the activities don't translate directly to sales revenue.

As a result, you get people who leave who were much more important to the organization than the organization understood and the folks left behind are stuck trying to recover and make up the loss.

If there was a manager measure of 'OQ' (organizational quotient) it would measure the ability to recognize and optimize the net productive energy of an organization. Groups without that awareness seem to wither as they pursue one or two 10x employees without regard to how to support their activities.

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#143

Post by xfibre »

dahart wrote: post #29

> I drastically reduced the time developers spent repairing those failures, but there were no metrics that tracked developer time. For several jobs in a row, I've felt that helping others on a team is undervalued and under-recorded. I've been planning to implement the "assist" metric, similar to basketball, on my own team for a while. The idea would be something along the lines of everyone gets a set of assist points…

> For several jobs in a row, I've felt that helping others on a team is undervalued and under-recorded.

I completely agree with you on this. Also, I like the idea of formalizing with "assist" metric, so that people are sure that their work won't go unrecognized.

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#144

Post by ajmurmann »

bob_theslob646 wrote: post #56
stephencanon wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never tried it, but I suspect you'll run into the same issue that sports does, where "assists" don't accurately reflect the people who are making things happen on the court. We miss the perimeter shooter who positions themselves just so to pull two defenders out of position, but give credit to the point guard who makes the now-easy pass for the "assist". It's entirely possible for the person most responsible for…

You're forgetting that you could also track secondhand assist as well. I can't speak for programming but in soccer this is well-known. It's just very hard to Value just like an employer would in terms of having that person on board for morale. Fortunately the better people get it and understand that that person should be value even if they weren't directly involved in making the change but they were definitely a part…

That's a huge reason why I strongly dislike OKRs especially in an Agile environment and even more when people pair program.

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#145

Post by ianmcgowan »

rdtsc wrote: post #103

> Google does a good job of building a sense of community within the organization. That is the true test. You are supposed to pretend only to buy into it but never really believe it. Understanding that things function on two levels is critical. One level is the superficial "we are a family, community, we are not evil, making the world better". But that's the trap to catch all the naive people and extract extra work h…

Sounds like the Gervais theory of management: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/11/11/the-gervais-principle-...

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#146

Post by evanspa »

GVIrish wrote: post #85
stephencanon wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never tried it, but I suspect you'll run into the same issue that sports does, where "assists" don't accurately reflect the people who are making things happen on the court. We miss the perimeter shooter who positions themselves just so to pull two defenders out of position, but give credit to the point guard who makes the now-easy pass for the "assist". It's entirely possible for the person most responsible for…

> We miss the perimeter shooter who positions themselves just so to pull two defenders out of position, but give credit to the point guard who makes the now-easy pass for the "assist". The NBA has an advanced metric for that called gravity. As you could imagine Steph Curry's gravity is through the roof. Another related metric is +/- for when a player is on the floor. That one is more nebulous and error prone but it i…

Ice hockey also has the +/- metric, and as a defenseman that doesn't get a lot of goals and assists, I'm glad it's there.

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#147

Post by [deleted] »

wehadfun wrote: post #94
somberi wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am manager who has a few levels under me (Total team of about 100 people). I find it difficult to buy into your experience, and hear me out. I am arguing in your favor. If you are assisting, and this includes providing support for someone else's code, or doing "invisible" tasks (setting up a redis cluster or writing end-to-end tests), this often finds its way into one email group or another. In fact I remember the…

Yea if a developer helps someone there is no guarantee that there will be an email chain generated as proof. If you truly believe this in all due respect you are out of touch with reality. People still walk up and ask for help. Maybe not in remote teams but in the office all the time. Supposedly making these type of interactions possible is the whole point of open offices

[deleted]

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#148

Post by Jemmeh »

dahart wrote: post #29

> I drastically reduced the time developers spent repairing those failures, but there were no metrics that tracked developer time. For several jobs in a row, I've felt that helping others on a team is undervalued and under-recorded. I've been planning to implement the "assist" metric, similar to basketball, on my own team for a while. The idea would be something along the lines of everyone gets a set of assist points…

99% chance of just being "friend" points instead of having anything to do with code.

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#149

Post by bethling »

lrem wrote: post #49

I'm also a Googler. Upon joining I was also given the keys to an ancient data pipeline, due a redesign for at least five years at that time. The person handing me the keys left almost immediately. My task was also keeping the thing adrift and nursing it back to health, whatever it takes. I did get promoted for that. The metric I used was pretty much the amount of developer time that went into supporting it that was s…

To be fair, a lot of that can depend on your manager. Your manager (should) have a better perspective on what resonates with the committees, help you gather/frame the data, and polish the package.

Google managers might not be the ones doing the promotion, but a good one can help you get there

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#150

Post by debt »

lrem wrote: post #49

I'm also a Googler. Upon joining I was also given the keys to an ancient data pipeline, due a redesign for at least five years at that time. The person handing me the keys left almost immediately. My task was also keeping the thing adrift and nursing it back to health, whatever it takes. I did get promoted for that. The metric I used was pretty much the amount of developer time that went into supporting it that was s…

Because you didn’t show graphs but showed testimonies form actual humans. Which I would assume, I don’t know for sure, that business people see graphs or hear grand ideas all day long and just really wanna know “yeah but is this actually improving anything for anyone?”
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