When I was a first line manager with only a handful of employees measuring performance was easy. You can be a “walk around manager” constantly seeing their accomplishments and giving them feedback. Now I am a manager of managers and have far more employees reporting to me. One of my challenges has been how to devote enough time to employees to know them properly. To know how well they are doing and give them feedback. I recently read Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work by Chip & Dan Heath. An example from the book was Van Halen.

When the band toured the technical requirements of their shows were immeasurable. So they added contract riders with heavy consequences. Most notably, their riders specified that a bowl of M&M’s candies was to be placed in their dressing room. Separately, in a different area of the contract, all of the brown M&M’s were to be removed. This sounds absurd. Yet, it quickly became an indicator. This showed that the electrical, structural, security, and safety requirements in the contract had been thoroughly observed.

So how do we apply this developers, testers, or even managers? I really don’t like performance metrics tied to code written, test performed, defects found, or projects accomplished. I found those metrics are too easily gained and reinforce the wrong behaviors. Luckily, the company I work for has a list of behaviors they want to see in employees. An example is “work across other teams to improve your solution.” These behaviors are not directly related to performance of source code or quality of the product. Just like the M&Ms it can be an indicator of an ask of the business that is missed.

I rank all employees based on these behaviors. I then ask what the top employees are doing that the bottom are not? The answer to that question then gives me new metrics to drive improvements to performance. Yes this sounds like a moving target and transparency is key. Managers can now have a conversation with employees who are low performers like:

“We have noticed that the top performers in the organization have participated in knowledge shares. What can you share with the greater team?”

The goal of this exercise is to constantly find ways to improve the organization’s performance. It is not meant to find ways to remove low performers. You don’t drown by falling into the water. You drown by staying there.