[cgannett]

This is further complicated by the difference between direct and indirect value. I build a thing that produces n value and is directly attributable to me. I also do things that help 100 others produce 10% more value themselves but most of that is attributed to themselves producing 10 * n value overall. How will I be rewarded if at all? Most likely as someone who produced n value.

[steveBK123]

This is the inherent friction of most overly “scientific” management systems. A decent line manager is aware of who on their team lifts up the team with glue & peer acceleration type soft work.

Systems that try to get too “objective” fail to recognize this as most KPIs are on direct outcomes that are easy to measure, though often less important.

No joke I once worked at a company with multi-category numeric ratings that then rolled up to a total rating score that had 2 decimal places of precision.

[sokoloff]

I got a review with that exact method and amount of (false) precision in an engineering team that was under 30 total people.

To that boss’ credit, the text feedback was actually useful, but the numeric scores were comical.

[cgannett]

ugh what a pain

Another issue is that often effort is the only lever one has in providing value as what tasks you are assigned constrains potential value output.Hypothetically, If my boss assigns me a stupid project destined to failure and tells me to shut up when I push back I'm really not going to get much value regardless of how much effort I put in... unless I was wrong in my assesment which is admittedly possible. Good management I suppose would then use effort as a proxy to try to find projects with potential to match one's effort.