51–60 of 61 posts
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Half the world doesn't have nuclear weapons, they seem to be doing just fine http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear-weapon-free_zone
Ukraine gave up their nukes on condition that their borders be respected, and look what happened.
Any form of measurement will fall back on them that want to make the measurement. You even can ruin company culture by having the wrong measurement. I saw it happen, when people started to cheat on colleagues to get better "performance".
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I learned that 30 years ago. It seems to be one of those things that every generation needs to learn the hard way. A reason why an effective team needs a few older guys who've been around the block a few times :-)
True. Unfortunately you then get a new VP who still believes in KPIs (or needs to demonstrate KPIs to his boss because that's the only thing upper management "gets") and then you're back to square one :(
"Hey people, this isn't pointing to production, is it?"
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You can't give up on measuring things, but you don't have to let people know what you are measuring or make the measure materially to them. That's there the trouble starts.
The challenge is then you lose accountability, and the ability for people to work on what they are weak at.
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You can't give up on measuring things, but you don't have to let people know what you are measuring or make the measure materially to them. That's there the trouble starts.
How do you know if the soldiers you have assigned to a project are any good without testing them?
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True. Unfortunately you then get a new VP who still believes in KPIs (or needs to demonstrate KPIs to his boss because that's the only thing upper management "gets") and then you're back to square one :(
It is fine to have KPIs. When KPIs go out of control it is a sign of culture issues, or whatever you want to call it. KPIs are just that. Indicators. Temperature is an indicator of good climate. If someone's answer to "it is cold in here" is to put a lighter under the thermometer then the problem isn't the thermometer, right? It is the people who are confusing indicators from goals. And that is a culture thing. If th…
Having to suck it up and deal right now. I appreciate you reminding me that KPIs are just a tool. :)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
True. Unfortunately you then get a new VP who still believes in KPIs (or needs to demonstrate KPIs to his boss because that's the only thing upper management "gets") and then you're back to square one :(
It is fine to have KPIs. When KPIs go out of control it is a sign of culture issues, or whatever you want to call it. KPIs are just that. Indicators. Temperature is an indicator of good climate. If someone's answer to "it is cold in here" is to put a lighter under the thermometer then the problem isn't the thermometer, right? It is the people who are confusing indicators from goals. And that is a culture thing. If th…
But you're not using indicators to do some kind of science, you're trying to use them to make decisions about who gets fired and who gets a raise.
If you're a self-interested human being, you're going to do whatever you can to make sure the indicator points to "give me a raise" not "throw my ass on the street." If the indicator is not a perfect measure of job performance, then you're going to let job performance slide to maximize the indicator.
So War Games was right then... We really do need to replace the officers with computers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is fine to have KPIs. When KPIs go out of control it is a sign of culture issues, or whatever you want to call it. KPIs are just that. Indicators. Temperature is an indicator of good climate. If someone's answer to "it is cold in here" is to put a lighter under the thermometer then the problem isn't the thermometer, right? It is the people who are confusing indicators from goals. And that is a culture thing. If th…
> If someone's answer to "it is cold in here" is to put a lighter under the thermometer then the problem isn't the thermometer, right? It is the people who are confusing indicators from goals. And that is a culture thing. But you're not using indicators to do some kind of science, you're trying to use them to make decisions about who gets fired and who gets a raise. If you're a self-interested human being, you're goi…
Thats the thing - the indicators when used right are used for science. Namely improvement of self or others. It gets harmful when they are solely used to determine if you should get a raise or get fired.
They can certainly be used to indicate problem areas i.e. "This guy is producing 50% less according to RANDOMKPI", does that make sense or do we need to fix something? But if they are used like "X is at 80% of RANDOMKPI, he will be fired if he is not at 90%" then they are harmful, obviously, because they dont take into account the much more important things like "X is at 80% of RANDOMKPI because he is unofficially the teacher of how to deal with anything in our payment systems, so he spends half his time helping out others, which adds way more value to us than if he was just implementing features" or whatever.
Once KPIs start to drive evaluations, you're down a slippery slope.