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Why are Amazon, Facebook and Yahoo copying Microsoft's stack ranking system?

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Re: Why are Amazon, Facebook and Yahoo copying Microsoft's stack ranking system?

#11

Post by kumarm »

vkou wrote: post #5
xal wrote: post #2

So what's a better way to do it? You need a documented system. If you don't have a documented system then there will be an undocumented system which is the same problem with less documentation.

A peer review-driven process. Productivity lost to that can't possibly be worse then the culture of backstabbing that stackrank promotes. For another point, the article seems to be making a heavy statistical error in assuming that Google's average developer lifespan is 1 year. Taking the average lifespan biases the result heavily towards new hires (Of which there are a lot of). A more relevant metric would be average…

[A peer review-driven process. Productivity lost to that can't possibly be worse then the culture of backstabbing that stackrank promotes.]

Every methodology has draw backs. Peer Review-driven system result in patting each others back always rather than providing honest feedbacks. I have seen places where no one questions a decision to not hurt a peer (Because thats gonna hurt them in review).

Re: Why are Amazon, Facebook and Yahoo copying Microsoft's stack ranking system?

#12

Post by lifeformed »

My impression that these types of systems are more for culling than accurate performance review. Perhaps they need to drop a certain percentage of employees by some target date, and this is the most blame-free way to do it on a large scale.

Re: Why are Amazon, Facebook and Yahoo copying Microsoft's stack ranking system?

#13

Post by r00fus »

gum_ina_package wrote: post #8

The title of this post assumes MS's stack ranking system is bad. Based off of personal experience, MS has dramatically improved how they do stack ranking. All companies stack rank, even startups. The only difference is that when that is formalized, everyone is on the same page and culture is more transparent.

Since you seem to have more knowledge of this than the general public here, can you provide info on how it's been improved of late?

As I understand stacked ranking, there doesn't seem to be many improvements that help when the underlying premise (forced attrition of "poorly performing" employees - where "poorly performing" is a judgement handed down by management) has major downsides.

Re: Why are Amazon, Facebook and Yahoo copying Microsoft's stack ranking system?

#14

Post by vladimirralev »

grandalf wrote: post #9

Inevitably some percentage of hiring decisions were flawed, either that they underestimated or overestimated the candidate's potential. These kinds of ranking systems are a mechanism to correct for that error once there is a lot more information known about the employee.

That's not how stack ranking works. The only thing that is inevitable is that you will have many teams where almost everybody is either top-performer or low-performer, but they will get ranked on the global scale as if they are equally productive.

Re: Why are Amazon, Facebook and Yahoo copying Microsoft's stack ranking system?

#15

Post by CamperBob2 »

xal wrote: post #2

So what's a better way to do it? You need a documented system. If you don't have a documented system then there will be an undocumented system which is the same problem with less documentation.

You need a documented system. If you don't have a documented system then there will be an undocumented system which is the same problem with less documentation.

So don't complain when your kid gets expelled from the second grade for pointing his finger like a gun and saying "Bang."

Re: Why are Amazon, Facebook and Yahoo copying Microsoft's stack ranking system?

#16

Post by ripvanwinkle »

Isn't there a fundamental difference between the FB rule of restricting the top rating to just 2% of employees and the Microsoft rule of decreeing that there must be a bottom 10% of "poor quality , less talented, undesirable elements" in the workforce.

The FB system doesn't make the non 2% feel rejected and unhappy - it just makes it very hard to be crowned the superstar which I think most people find perfectly acceptable.

To address the relatively longer period of MS employee retention, Microsoft employees (esp the technical ones) in general work on a set of technologies (C#, NT Kernel, SharePoint,...) for which MS is the place to be. They build up expertise and then if they have to leave to join a comparable company, they need to rebuild in a different set of technologies most likely open source stuff of which there is very little in Microsoft.

Now if you are a Linux kernel hacker / Python guru/... at Google/Amazon the world is your oyster - everything you are good at transfers readily to companies/roles of similar stature outside.

Its almost like Microsoft technologies are a moat around its castle that keeps talent from leaving.

full disclosure I worked at Microsoft for about 7 years before leaving.

Re: Why are Amazon, Facebook and Yahoo copying Microsoft's stack ranking system?

#17

Post by oceanplexian »

xal wrote: post #2

So what's a better way to do it? You need a documented system. If you don't have a documented system then there will be an undocumented system which is the same problem with less documentation.

A hierarchal system of good management. Hiring processes that don't suck.

Instead of a complex recruiting maze where you need to have 13 people review new hires (and strive for the lowest common denominator between the group), they need more freedom to hire good people. People will and do game the system anyway. To counter that, managers need authority to terminate bad apples on a whim.

If these large corporations managed themselves like a collection of startups, we might see more innovation and less turnover.

Re: Why are Amazon, Facebook and Yahoo copying Microsoft's stack ranking system?

#18

Post by ethomson »

brown9-2 wrote: post #6

The evil, destructive, part of stack ranking is when you need to apply the 20%/70%/10% breakdowns to all teams equally, meaning that even a team of 5 people needs to have one and only one "exceeds expectation" person and one person who "needs improvement", regardless of overall team level. It's not clear from this writeup that Amazon and Facebook are applying curves at such a micro level.

My understanding of my group (which may not apply to all parts of Microsoft, of course) is that our 6-person groups are too small to stack rank, so stack ranking rolls up to the next level. So Microsoft doesn't apply stack ranking at such a micro level either.

Re: Why are Amazon, Facebook and Yahoo copying Microsoft's stack ranking system?

#19

Post by kvb »

brown9-2 wrote: post #6

The evil, destructive, part of stack ranking is when you need to apply the 20%/70%/10% breakdowns to all teams equally, meaning that even a team of 5 people needs to have one and only one "exceeds expectation" person and one person who "needs improvement", regardless of overall team level. It's not clear from this writeup that Amazon and Facebook are applying curves at such a micro level.

What leads you to believe that Microsoft applies the curve at that level?

Re: Why are Amazon, Facebook and Yahoo copying Microsoft's stack ranking system?

#20

Post by mtrimpe »

xal wrote: post #2

So what's a better way to do it? You need a documented system. If you don't have a documented system then there will be an undocumented system which is the same problem with less documentation.

Each employee receives a single unit of value. Let's call it a 'credit.'

Each employee then has to distribute all of his 'credit' to other employees.

Each employee then gives away any credit received according to the same original distribution.

Each employee continues doing so until the credit received and distributed reaches an equilibrium.

Each employee is then ranked by the total amount of 'credit' they've accumulated.

Maybe we should call it 'PeopleRank' ;)

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