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As the mid-year rolls around for all of us, if you are part of a large organization this is typically the time a mid-year performance appraisal and evaluation takes place for the majority of you. These annual to bi-annual performance appraisals are are a stressful event for both the evaluator and evaluatee since it determines your ability to obtain bonuses, merit increases, promotions and in the worst situation, whether you will keep your job or not.
But how does this work for Agile/Scrum teams where team members are self-organizing, which implies the ability to harmonize and work together as a collective rather than relying on individual performance, to deliver those working deliverables at the end of each iteration?
An article on the Scrum Alliance website by Uday Shete addresses this very issue quite well, for he states:
We can leverage the spirit of Agile to empower the team to appraise its own team members. The sprint retrospective is done continuously, and it helps evolve and improve team productivity and efficiency. The team determines what was good, bad, and ugly, and it determines what it needs to do to improve. Ideal sprint retrospective meetings are conducted within a candid, honest, and constructive environment. What better platform to appraise individual performance as well? Wouldn't every team member appreciate such an environment for his or her appraisal? Since the sprint retrospective is a time-boxed meeting, my proposal is to use 15 minutes out of this meeting for the purpose of individual team member appraisals.
Now we have the right platform, with the right people. The team believes it is the owner of the appraisal process and is empowered to carry it out.
He outlines a game that can be played by each team member that anonymously discloses whom them felt was the best performer on the team. The ScrumMaster then holds a 15 minute appraisal session during the retrospective whereby each team member justifies their choice and notes what they could do to make themselves achieve those goals. This is similar to the Delphi method used in traditional project management to best assess risk by having experts anonymously post and review their opinions.
This is not a bad way to incorporate performance appraisals into your Agile agenda and doing so does aligns with the Agile framework as Uday outlines:
- Feedback is crystal clear and focused on individuals rather than the process.
- The method focuses on measurable performance, not excessive documentation of an individual's performance.
- It eliminates negotiation and propagates transparency in the system.
- It offers quick and frequent feedback, with frequent opportunities to take corrective action.
- It offers an environment of trust and honesty, which supports the development of the team.
I do agree with a commenter that though this is an effective technique, for most situations it is inevitable that at some point there will be a need for a formal performance appraisal. These appraisal will also delve into areas such as career goals, individual areas of improvement and other behavioral improvements that can only be shared between the manager, team member and HR that may be in conflict and even contradiction to the teams self-appraisal sessions that can add a layer of unecessary complexity.
Nonetheless, an interesting idea that I think is worth looking into.
Posted on: June 28, 2012 10:50 PM |
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