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> Measuring developer outputs can be detrimental because there are not enough data points to understand if the unproductiveness was caused by the developer himself, or by his surroundings/company. How about just doing your best as an organization and as a people manager to make your developers happy and fulfilled? That increases productivity and motivation to succeed more than anything, IMO. Give great pay raises regularly, give a ton of time off, get rid of people managers who are jerks, etc. If your company has goals, and your developers aren't producing code to meet the goals, your goals are probably too high, you have too few developers, or your developers aren't motivated to complete the goals because they are being treated like shit or don't agree with the goals. Management always wants to think that they are right in every decision and the employees are the ones who are unproductive, but after decades of working for "the man" in about 10 different industries in different positions/careers, I have found the fault lies with management 80 to 90 percent of the time due to some leadership failure or combination of failures. The problem is poor leadership and lack of motivation, no doubt in my mind. I've also led large groups of people (in the military) and by far the best thing I could do for them was make their personal and work lives better by not getting in the way and by not acting like a dickhead. Adding metrics to things just caused more useless work for me. You can't force change in a system via metrics, the only place where measurement changes outcome is in quantum physics. I hate to go on a "capitalism vs. communism" type rant, but the best places I have ever worked, with the best "productivity", have been flat orgs where the developers and other employees are included in the decision making and the management and execs are open and caring and don't try to put profits and the business above the personnel. When everyone shared the success or failure of the company on equal terms, we could all get things done that were unthinkable. |
Getting crap reviews/evaluations because a project failed due to management screwups is the universe's way of saying "you should have left long before, but leaving now is your best available alternative."
Much of this discussion is how to protect people from the consequences of staying in a bad situation.
The correct response is to not to try to fix things, but to leave. Staying only perpetuates the problems.
Starve the beast.