NEHA CHATURVEDIStructural Engineer-| AECOM New Delhi, Delhi, India
Hi All! What do you think shall be the broad parameters to assess performance of the team members and what could be the weightage of such parameters.also I feel the weightage will vary based on the role or designation of members. Saving Changes...
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Deepesh RammoorthyICT Project Manager ( PMP®AgilePM®Certified ScrumMaster® (CSM®))| Australian Red Cross Blood ServiceTarneit, Vic, Australia
Easy to do this in terms of Velocity in Agile Sprints . If you see a steady increase in Velocity as you progress through the sprints , that means the team is performing much better and improving progressively.
The other way to assess could be assessing the quality of the deliverable through a survey of the end users/customers regarding their levels of satisfaction with the product/service/outcome delivered by the project.
A third different way is to evaluate the quality of the "function" across projects . For Example , you can evaluate the "business analysis" function across six different projects and find out areas of improvement like training or use the positive learning for future projects. You can do this by getting surveys sent out to the customers for the different projects.
I do not wish to create Silos, politics and turf wars through role or designations . Either the whole team performs well or the whole team under-performs. I personally would avoid Assessment based on roles or designation of individuals but would be interested to know the experience of others in this regards.
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1 reply by Adrian Carlogea
Aug 06, 2019 9:11 AM
Adrian Carlogea
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"Easy to do this in terms of Velocity in Agile Sprints . If you see a steady increase in Velocity as you progress through the sprints , that means the team is performing much better and improving progressively."
This is not a good measurement in my opinion. The velocity can increase because the team members are writing code in a big hurry, maybe under pressure, that would result in technical debt or they are working on related tasks and they have got very accustomed with the code in that particular area of the product.
When technical debt accumulates the velocity usually decreases but this does not mean the performance of the team has decreased. It simply means that the team had taken some shortcuts in the past to finish quickly previous sprints and now the time has come to pay the bill for taking those shortcuts. If technical debt is not addressed by the developers (non-developers can't do anything about it) then it would take longer and longer to complete tasks.
Also if the team moves to a different area of the product and has to work with code that they are not very accustomed with then the velocity can also decrease even if the performance of the team doesn't.
All the above would be true if the story points estimation was accurate but it is not. So you are trying to measure performance against some inaccurate references and also without taking into account some critical aspects of the work that is being performed.
If companies use this kind of silly performance measurements they are risking on loosing their best employees if those measurements are used for the employees rewards systems.
The team members themselves know their own capabilities and performance level as well as the capabilities of their coworkers. Managers from the same line of work as the team members should evaluate the individual performance of the employees.
Saving Changes...
Prabhat PandeyTechnical Program Manager| GOOGLEGurgaon, Haryana, India
Neha , Here is the list of items that you can use to judge the performance of the team members.
Delivery Aspect -
Deliver Design Document as per agreed project timelines
Productivity of the Team member
Identify process improvement
Identify / Deliver / Re-use
Estimation of the Tasks
Demonstrate understanding of estimation processes and their application. Demonstrate capability to estimate efforts depending on complexity of domain
Quality of the tasks:
Ensure that requirements are tracked against,there is no major flaw in design.
Ownership and Grooming Team Members
Demonstrate the ability to drive small to medium size modules. Ability to interact and handle customer independently.
Analytical Skills
Gather information about issues and breaks them down; Build a comprehensive understanding and contribute in actively in reducing such issues; Analyze problems for the peers and help them in finding solutions
Leadership
Demonstrate ability to analyze specific issues of the team and report and handle them skillfully.
Review/Ownership
Ensure ownership of assigned module. No delay in release timelines
Aspiration and Engagement of the team member in alignment to the Project tasks.
Hope this generic list of some aspects to measure performance will be helpful to you :) Saving Changes...
Prasanta SwainPractice Director| ITOrizonBangalore, Karnataka, India
Hi Neha, You could measure against the SMART goal set at the beginning of performance evaluation Cycle. Please ensure to revisit the GOAL of team member(s) if there is a change to role/team/assignment. Competencies and future potentials are not measurable all the times but most of the times your competent players would exceed their goal. Use the GOAL framework to determine the gap & help out your bottom performers as well before PIP. Important Note - Involve team during the process of GOAL creation. Saving Changes...
Thomas WalentaGlobal Project Economy ExpertHackenheim, Germany
Why not use the team insight itself?
They know best what the status and performance is.
In a project of the year they use as main monitoring measurement a team morale index (TMI). It gathered input to a set of about 10 questions like
- do you think the project will deliver on time
- do you use more effort to create your deliverables than planned
- do you get help from fellow team members when you need it
- etc
They put out an anonymous survey every Friday and shared the results and trends with the team. They acted on issues identified for the project.
Team members guts are a much quicker indicator of problems than facts. Saving Changes...
Neha, I agree with Prabhat Pandey. Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
First of all, I fully agree with @Thomas here. Perhaps with other method, not surveys, but the team itself is the best source and you as project manager, performing elicitation activities using direct observation for example, are the other source. Second, the first thing to do, is to define what performance means to you and mainly to your organization. You have to add value, value is a subjective matter that organizations must transform into objective ones, but in general (and as defined in the BRM practice guide where I was part of the lexicon definition) value is the relationship between satisfying needs and expectations and the resources required to achieve them. Saving Changes...
Measure what the team produces - output and quality thereof, and then use team-level feedback as the primary input for individual evaluation. Otherwise, you might get some unintended consequences such as team members focusing on just producing lots of "inventory" but not helping one another or collaborating.
Easy to do this in terms of Velocity in Agile Sprints . If you see a steady increase in Velocity as you progress through the sprints , that means the team is performing much better and improving progressively.
The other way to assess could be assessing the quality of the deliverable through a survey of the end users/customers regarding their levels of satisfaction with the product/service/outcome delivered by the project.
A third different way is to evaluate the quality of the "function" across projects . For Example , you can evaluate the "business analysis" function across six different projects and find out areas of improvement like training or use the positive learning for future projects. You can do this by getting surveys sent out to the customers for the different projects.
I do not wish to create Silos, politics and turf wars through role or designations . Either the whole team performs well or the whole team under-performs. I personally would avoid Assessment based on roles or designation of individuals but would be interested to know the experience of others in this regards.
"Easy to do this in terms of Velocity in Agile Sprints . If you see a steady increase in Velocity as you progress through the sprints , that means the team is performing much better and improving progressively."
This is not a good measurement in my opinion. The velocity can increase because the team members are writing code in a big hurry, maybe under pressure, that would result in technical debt or they are working on related tasks and they have got very accustomed with the code in that particular area of the product.
When technical debt accumulates the velocity usually decreases but this does not mean the performance of the team has decreased. It simply means that the team had taken some shortcuts in the past to finish quickly previous sprints and now the time has come to pay the bill for taking those shortcuts. If technical debt is not addressed by the developers (non-developers can't do anything about it) then it would take longer and longer to complete tasks.
Also if the team moves to a different area of the product and has to work with code that they are not very accustomed with then the velocity can also decrease even if the performance of the team doesn't.
All the above would be true if the story points estimation was accurate but it is not. So you are trying to measure performance against some inaccurate references and also without taking into account some critical aspects of the work that is being performed.
If companies use this kind of silly performance measurements they are risking on loosing their best employees if those measurements are used for the employees rewards systems.
The team members themselves know their own capabilities and performance level as well as the capabilities of their coworkers. Managers from the same line of work as the team members should evaluate the individual performance of the employees. Saving Changes...
Karthik RamamurthyAuthor, Say YES to Project Success| Founder KeyResultzChennai, Tamilnadu, Tamilnadu, India
@Neha: Thanks for posting this very relevant question.
Talent Management is indeed a critical area for Project Success, and the PM needs to therefore invest time in effective performance management.
Factors considered will vary based on industry, project size, geography, etc.
However, it is critical to ensure that the parameters are easy to understand, fair to everyone in the team, and not be entirely on numbers.
I hope you'll continue to contribute your queries for the benefit of our vibrant community here on projectmanagement.com Saving Changes...
