Also, how do you tell the “best absolute performer?”

I always have trouble giving a strict ranking to people performing complex activities. I was just talking last night about how I could never make an ordered list of the 100 best guitarists. How do I compare Carlos Santana and John Lennon? Or Andre Segovia and Jimi Hendrix?

The person with whom I was discussing this claimed to have no such problem. But he freely admitted that he didn’t consider any of these to be great guitarists. To him, they were successful, “establishment” musicians (except for Segovia, but he didn’t like classical music, either) and so they weren’t really in the running.

I didn’t know enough younger musicians to test whether he might have difficulty ranking guitarists he did like, but I gained the insight that rankings seem to become easier if we use stereotypes rather than looking closely at the situation. He could easily downrank the guitarists I mentioned, not because of their guitar-playing skill, but because he didn’t listen to “that type” of music.

Maybe because that’s the optimal solution? Well, actually, I’m assuming that the best absolute performer is also the most cost-effective.

As to your list, I think 3 and 4 can be replaced by working in a team context and at least a modest ability to read people. Or strong enough relationships that one can ask and get a reasonably truthful answer.

I say this because I know a number of product managers who aren’t particularly technical, but they definitely know who’s who on their teams. I presume they get this by observing the interactions between the technical people. And they definitely supplement that with direct discussion when needed.

The original question–the team has a velocity of 6, but should they be getting 8–assumes that people might be slacking off. But agile methods explicitly call for a sustainable pace. So I don’t want people to work as hard as they can. I want them to work at a pace where they aren’t making themselves more error prone, and aren’t exhausting themselves.

“Who is working hard?” My experience is that some people will have to work harder to accomplish the same results that another person can accomplish easily. Some people look like they are working mighty hard, but are not accomplishing much.

Thinking that we have to have everyone working equally hard doesn’t make sense to me…why punish the person who gets his work done quickly by piling more on?

Further, there’s almost always someone how isn’t the best programmer, but things just go better when he/she is on the team.

Perhaps some different questions:

Are the conditions present for every member of the team to do his or her best? (Think MOIJ.)

Have the managers put together people with the mix of skills and expertise needed to do the work the company needs done?

Are individuals performing to the expectations of their pay level?

If there’s a perception that people are working hard, what might the reasons for that be? (Systems, policies, procedures that dis-incent performance; work they don’t care for; disenchantment with direct managers?)

Yes, I agree. It seems that if what we really want is to accomplish something (like the delivery of valuable software) then this business of making sure people are working hard is a red herring. It, like formal documents, are just a means to an end, and there may be better such means at our disposal.

I read your blog all the time and enjoy what you write about. This blog entry caught my attention and I had to respond.

The one problem I have with the judgment of “working hard or hardly working” is that is presumes that working hard is always good. A large issue in our industry is the “busy-ness” factor of all people involved in the organization from executives to managers to developers and operations. We all are too busy and therefore our hard work turns into adding more work than if we were to slow down and make better decisions about how to complete the work best.

So, even if someone could tell if another person is “working hard” or “hardly working” I am not sure this is a good measure of anything. In the end I would rather understand if the organization or product team as a whole is getting faster in their delivery of valuable software. If this is the case then all people involved are improving their capabilities for the good of the whole.