Comment by pydry
2 years ago
I sometimes wonder if developers should do an end run around all this bullshit and come up with and start measuring management productivity metrics.
I dont see a downside to doing this.
2 years ago
I sometimes wonder if developers should do an end run around all this bullshit and come up with and start measuring management productivity metrics.
I dont see a downside to doing this.
"Hey, boss who can fire me, I just thought you should know that we on the team have started keeping metrics. I want you to know that your 'times you made the only girl on the team uncomfortable with a sexist joke' metric is unusually high this month, and your 'unblocked the team by speeding up an external request' metric is 0 for this month, down from 3 times last month"
Let me know if you find any downsides.
Anyway, management will of course argue that developers under them are incapable of seeing everything management does. After all, management's job is to shield developers from other managers, so if the developers think all the managers at the company are worthless, that's actually a sign of how well management did their job of shielding each other's teams from each other.
The logical conclusion to that argument is that we should do away with the lot of them.
In many workplaces middle management has already been automated. Algorithms manage Uber drivers. Algorithms manage Amazon warehouse employees.
These companies are even more stratified than before with the lumpenproletariat doing human-mechanized tasks while executives program their lives using software we write in exchange for the unbridled luxuries like the chance to own a roof over our head one day.
It's not exactly the future I wanted.
AI is actually now shaping up to replace these jobs much more simply than blue collar work.
So, yes absolutely, administrative work now can finally be replaced, and we can free up all the tormented souls in these managerial positions to do something more meaningful with their lives.
We all feel like management contributes nothing, right? But they seem to always be around successful companies. I dunno, correlation isn’t causation, but I think there must be something there.
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>Anyway, management will of course argue that developers under them are incapable of seeing everything management does.
What a coincidence! Thats one of the first thoughts that crept into my head when code metrics started being used on me.
This "voyage of discovery" you've alluded to is exactly what I meant by no downsides.
If managers feels threatened by being measured by their employees after their employees start measuring them, well, that's also an interesting reflection is it not?
Management also have their own metrics, measured by even higher management further up the chain. Even if there is a manager or director that I really liked and would like to keep, they have to answer to the metrics of their VPs and SVPs above. It's metrics all the way up.
People at the top of the hierarchy probably do care about people at the bottom, but it's difficult to care about a large number of people as individuals, so they resort to metrics that probably models what's going on. Unfortunately, the metrics don't always work.
Instead of measuring and gaming numerical metrics, enforcing a particular culture might be a better way to go:
https://apenwarr.ca/log/20190926
it's called a labor union
unions don't measure productivity. They group people based on credentials + experience, and treat everyone as interchangeable within those buckets.
That's one possible union architecture, sure, but you're missing the forest for the trees. A union offers job security to reduce the risk of "managing up."
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You're thinking of management.
I'm sure most unions would love performance based pay where union reps decide what constitutes good performance. For some mysterious reason management is as keen on unions exercising their judgement as unions are on management deciding.
Where unions agree policies that treat members as interchangeable (e.g. age based pay) it is usually as a result of a compromise brooked with management who would love to have the latitude to give pay raises to scabs, kiss asses and spies.
That's not generally how it works in professional sports with player unions. Nor does it work that way in the film and television industries where there are unions representing writers, directors, actors, etc...
The shape of the union is whatever the membership wants it to have.
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Managers don't stay in the same role long enough to have their productivity measured.
Really? From my manager and up at least 4 levels has been unchanged for at least 8 years. Titles changed some, but the same people are in the same effective roles.
They measured by the perceived output of the team. Give them credit for being self-serving, at a minimum.
How would coming up with good metrics for "management" be any easier than coming up with good metrics for "programming"?
At least programming has some verifiable realities that can be witnessed objectively by multiple observers. Not that such things are often used on "metrics", but they could be.
The quality of someone's management is hard to assess from outside, much less objectively verify. Has your manager increased or decreased your productivity today? Was it necessary that they do so for a larger goal you're not considering? Were they just power tripping?
That's exactly my point. Managers who protested the use of metrics on them would inadvertently undermine the argument for using them on developers.
Measuring is an aggressive act intended to invoke control that has a veneer of innocence.
That said I'm now wondering if there wouldn't be some metrics which might prove useful to workers either way.