[opportune]

Doesn’t Microsoft, as well as almost all other large software companies, still do almost the same thing by having a fixed distribution of ratings that needs to be met under some organizational unit? IE under each director of 100 people you have 5 A+, 25 A, 30 B, 30 C, 5 D, 5F?

[skytrue]

Not to mention that there is a fixed budget, and so they can only promote so many people in a given period, as rewards are tied to promotions. That means that even if there are many top performers, they have to determine which ones aren't as "top" as others. This inherently creates a stack. Whoops.

[skapadia]

There is always a fixed budget, so at some level stacking has to occur. Whether that's at the individual level, or team, project, department, business unit, etc. Unfortunately at some level politics / perception / who speaks the loudest always comes into play.

[maurys]

The only other system I can recall is usually for things like sales. Where you have a fixed salary and commission-driven bonuses based on your numbers that quarter.

Of course, sales is easier to compare 1:1.

And I've always thought that hard targets would be more stressful than stack-ranking.

[amznthrowaway5]

When people talk about stack ranking they are often referring to the most toxic part of the classic system, forced firing of the bottom ranked X% (usually around 10% per year)