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Microsoft does away with stack ranking

zdnet.com

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Re: Microsoft does away with stack ranking

#71

Post by Ensorceled »

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…

I think the main problem with stack ranking is that you convince your employees that their personal competitors are their teammates and not actual business competitors.

Any time the best way for me to get ahead is by using "The Art of War" on my peers you have set up your organization for eventual failure.

Re: Microsoft does away with stack ranking

#72

Post by bmohlenhoff »

It's nice that now they are going to value teamwork and collaboration more highly, but I don't see the lack of a curve making much of a difference in compensation level for the average contributor. The total size of the compensation budget is fixed, and they have to spend all of it.

Just because now 30% of the staff can fall into the Exceed Expectations bucket doesn't necessarily mean that the budget increases. The money gets divided differently, that's all.

It does seem like a positive change though if they can improve the culture of the workplace and minimize the amount of backstabbing, cronyism and political nonsense.

Re: Microsoft does away with stack ranking

#73

Post by meowface »

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.

The problem is when likability affects how someone reviews your technical abilities. It should be a separate category, but most people would have significant trouble disassociating the two; more so if you're friends with a coworker.

Re: Microsoft does away with stack ranking

#74

Post by ethomson »

Ensorceled wrote: post #71
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…

I think the main problem with stack ranking is that you convince your employees that their personal competitors are their teammates and not actual business competitors. Any time the best way for me to get ahead is by using "The Art of War" on my peers you have set up your organization for eventual failure.

Of course we're competing. That's the whole point of a merit-based bonus system. What's your counterargument?

Re: Microsoft does away with stack ranking

#76

Post by robododo »

amaks wrote: post #48
robododo wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but there is no forced curve fit. A healthy organization will always "manage out" people who are not fit for the job. At Microsoft, folks are given the hint early enough that they can explore other internal options before leaving the company entirely. Though, to be honest, if someone just can't cut it, they will leave the company.

"At Microsoft, folks are given the hint early enough that they can explore other internal options before leaving the company entirely." Except that it doesn't work. No internal hiring manager will ever allow the interview loop/transfer for the internal candidate with the score 4 or 5 (I think those are the lowest scores in the current model:-). In 99.9% of cases those unlucky who got 5 get laid off by the next review…

I've actually seen one person move after a 5. A poor data set, admittedly. It does happen, though.

Re: Microsoft does away with stack ranking

#77

Post by tensor »

Ensorceled wrote: post #67
tensor wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hav…

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

And this is exactly why I asked the question. Here you have judged me, since I said judging performance was hard, on both my development methodology and technical chops. Yet you know nothing about me at all.

The problem of evaluation is an important one, and one I'm always interested in reading more on. Unfortunately the strategy of taking one's self as a gold standard isn't exactly what I was looking for. It does seem obvious that being an expert in your domain is a necessary trait to be able to evaluate others, but it's not at all obvious that it is a sufficient trait.

The idea of multi-source feedback seems intuitively good, despite the conflicting research on it. That more input will expose biases or inaccuracies is a decent hypothesis. On the other hand, judgment from a single person seems highly error prone. Whatever faults that one person has will never be exposed and reviews seem almost guaranteed to have bias.

In the end, I'm left with no idea why you so quickly discard the reports of your peers.

Re: Microsoft does away with stack ranking

#78

Post by mhurron »

ethomson wrote: post #74
Ensorceled wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the main problem with stack ranking is that you convince your employees that their personal competitors are their teammates and not actual business competitors. Any time the best way for me to get ahead is by using "The Art of War" on my peers you have set up your organization for eventual failure.

Of course we're competing. That's the whole point of a merit-based bonus system. What's your counterargument?

When one person succeeds we all succeed breaks down when you are pushed to succeed at the expense of everyone else. You are supposed to be working for the good of the whole, not just yourself.

Cooperation and team work are also meritorious, but they are not rewarded or encouraged in this type of merit-based system.

Re: Microsoft does away with stack ranking

#79

Post by dreamfactory »

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…

Makes me wonder if he wasn't a prolific tech debt producer who was seen by management to GTD.

Re: Microsoft does away with stack ranking

#80

Post by bskap »

Pxtl wrote: post #47
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…

From the outside as a developer, you can feel the effect of such a drama-driven system as Stack Rank. MS's obsession with perfect backwards compatibility means they can't make mistakes, because those mistakes are forever . So why embrace a process that seems to celebrate daring? A move-fast-and-break-things approach to projects? You'd think MS would be an analysis-paralysis company, because every MS product needs to…

From an inside perspective, stack ranking was actually hurting backwards compatibility. "I made this cool new feature" gets you a lot more recognition come review time than "I made sure that Sim City kept working in the new version of Windows". That's why no one really takes the time to fix things like the console host, preferring instead to write the fancy new PowerShell ISE.
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