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Microsoft does away with stack ranking

zdnet.com

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Re: Microsoft does away with stack ranking

#61

Post by sib »

alkonaut wrote: post #36

I wasn't aware that US companies ranked employees and used rankings when purging the workforce (when I think about it it's a pretty obvious idea). In countries with stronger labour laws "underperformance" basically isn't a reason to fire someone. The employer is responsible for the employees performance (training etc.). This can be frustrating in the software business when just a few really poor performers can really…

"In countries with stronger labour laws..."

Interesting. I would refer to those as countries with "weaker" or "perverse" employment laws...

Re: Microsoft does away with stack ranking

#62

Post by HelloMcFly »

tiglionabbit wrote: post #59
Ensorceled wrote: post #34

One major thing I learned from 360 reviews is how bad developers are at judging each other or their manager. I've had employees on probation for lack of productivity judged as excellent by their peers because of their ability to socialize their "abilities". I had the best developer on my team (a 10x developer if ever there was one) get slammed on technical ability rankings because of his prickly personality. My VP an…

This is a perfect description of the Halo Effect. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect

It's a good description that goes in both directions. 360 reviews are popular because they reduce single-source bias (a subclass of Common Method Variance). Different perspective of an employee can helps account for unique variance in the employees' true performance. From my perspective Ensorceled's comment demonstrate their value rather than their shortcomings.

Re: Microsoft does away with stack ranking

#63

Post by nikatwork »

jasonculbertson wrote: post #57

I saw the downfall of stack ranking immediately after a company I worked at was acquired by Microsoft. The workplace changed within a month from one focused on teamwork and support to Lord of the Flies. When the only way you can succeed is by being "better" then someone else you are forced to step upon others. I believe that this is also the effect of working for a public company with a stock that hasn't moved in pri…

Seen the same - work turned into a Survivor gameshow. Instead of concentrating on the product, everyone formed alliances and ganged up on the less-liked people. Everybody was so focused on politics nobody cared about the product anymore. Then the product died. I still don't think our MBA execs learned a damn thing from the whole fiasco, I'm sure they're somewhere else getting paid big bucks to run some other poor teams into the ground.

Re: Microsoft does away with stack ranking

#64

Post by mathattack »

Now that they get rid of it, I wonder if they're going to run into problems on the other extreme...

- Difficulty knowing who the best employees are.

- Employees surprised by layoffs. "I thought I was doing well."

- Managers slacking on giving constructive feedback.

Performance management is such a tough subject. Both extremes (ruthless stacking, and no-curve) have issues and I don't know a better solution.

Re: Microsoft does away with stack ranking

#65

Post by Ensorceled »

jredwards wrote: post #58
Ensorceled wrote: post #34

One major thing I learned from 360 reviews is how bad developers are at judging each other or their manager. I've had employees on probation for lack of productivity judged as excellent by their peers because of their ability to socialize their "abilities". I had the best developer on my team (a 10x developer if ever there was one) get slammed on technical ability rankings because of his prickly personality. My VP an…

Likability is underrated. Someone who is easy to work with, improves workplace morale, and makes other developers feel comfortable at work is a valuable asset. Certainly, it shouldn't be a substitute for technical ability, but it can be a very significant complimentary attribute.

Agreed. Team work is critical, but likability should affect the soft rankings only but instead had an overall positive or negative effect, even on technical skill rankings.

Re: Microsoft does away with stack ranking

#66

Post by nikatwork »

Patrick_Devine wrote: post #30

This is good to see. The whole premise of stack ranking is fundamentally flawed. Clearly there is a curve that when applied to an entire population shows that there are under-performers. So far, so good, however, the problem is that stack ranking isn't applied to the entire population since it's impossible to normalize the performance of each individual. Instead, companies that stack rank do it on a team-by-team basi…

Sounds like an evil but effective way to combat the BS of stack ranking - keep a couple of obviously subpar staff chained up in the corner ready to be sacrificed at the review altar then replaced. Honestly, I can see the benefits of SR as a once off "clear the decks" purge, but as a continual measure it's insanity.

Re: Microsoft does away with stack ranking

#67

Post by Ensorceled »

tensor wrote: post #51
Ensorceled wrote: post #34

One major thing I learned from 360 reviews is how bad developers are at judging each other or their manager. I've had employees on probation for lack of productivity judged as excellent by their peers because of their ability to socialize their "abilities". I had the best developer on my team (a 10x developer if ever there was one) get slammed on technical ability rankings because of his prickly personality. My VP an…

What makes you think that your judgements are any better than theirs? How do you judge performance? Do you look at code? Or do you simply go by how many feature check boxes they get through in a given time frame? edit: and I don't ask this to be insulting, but judging performance is a very difficult task and I've never seen a reliable methodology for doing it. Thus, I'm naturally extremely skeptical when someone clai…

I'm usually one of the strongest developers on my team, even when I'm managing. It's one of my strengths and why I stay with small companies. It also means I'm qualified to judge the technical skills of my developers, I know how long it should take.

People who think judging performance is hard have a broken development methodology or no technical chops.

That's also why I included the comment on my own rankings; I have some pretty serious weaknesses that were ranked as areas of strengths by my peers and reports.

Re: Microsoft does away with stack ranking

#68

Post by matwood »

derefr wrote: post #56
ethomson wrote: post #5

This was seemingly inevitable whether this is actually useful or not. Microsoft has been getting increasing heat about our stack ranking system, both from employees and from external people. But I don't think stack ranking is our problem. I think our problem is that we value this notion of the brilliant and excellent individual contributor instead of valuing employees that value teamwork and team problem solving. I s…

You know what, though? Productivity on a team can be just as separate from people's perception of you (i.e. how much they like you) as individual productivity is. Imagine this experiment: you have a great, productive team who has one member they all hate (and therefore assume isn't doing much for the team.) You take that person off the team... and the team's productivity plummets.

Or productivity goes up because other team members can now flourish without being berated.

Re: Microsoft does away with stack ranking

#69

Post by Ensorceled »

YZF wrote: post #40
Ensorceled wrote: post #34

One major thing I learned from 360 reviews is how bad developers are at judging each other or their manager. I've had employees on probation for lack of productivity judged as excellent by their peers because of their ability to socialize their "abilities". I had the best developer on my team (a 10x developer if ever there was one) get slammed on technical ability rankings because of his prickly personality. My VP an…

360 isn't perfect but it's better than the alternative. You're basically saying that those who worked daily in close interaction with the 10x developer and had to work with the code that developer produced, had lower regard for his technical ability than a manager who presumably is further removed? You can't ignore the social aspect. A team with social frictions isn't going to work as well as a team that enjoys worki…

Yes, I know what a 360 is, I've participated in them.

In the situations I indicated I was also a developer on the team so I knew how productive and skilled the 10x prickly developer was. His peers ranked him high on technical skills but only as high as more amicable and lessor skilled peers.

I'm not saying I ignored the social aspect, in fact that is why I called him "prickly". I'm just saying that, while his teamwork related areas were properly low, his technical areas were improperly low because of this halo effect.

Re: Microsoft does away with stack ranking

#70

Post by Ensorceled »

HelloMcFly wrote: post #62
tiglionabbit wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a perfect description of the Halo Effect. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect

It's a good description that goes in both directions. 360 reviews are popular because they reduce single-source bias (a subclass of Common Method Variance). Different perspective of an employee can helps account for unique variance in the employees' true performance. From my perspective Ensorceled's comment demonstrate their value rather than their shortcomings.

Exactly! I love 360 reviews because, in part, they help mitigate the halo effect. They were also good at revealing the halo effect.
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