To promote an environment where everyone is always striving to increase the value they add to the team.
It is difficult for managers to track progress and personal development, as they aren't face-to-face with the developer on a daily basis, and don't necessarily have the technical know-how. If the developer feels their efforts go un-noticed, they're not motivated to put in effort.
Have everybody review everybody.
I got the idea off Valve, who don't have managers at all, and with over 330 staff, have a higher profitability-per-employee than Google and Microsoft.
- An Interviewer asks each Team Member questions about each of their Peers
- Notes are anonymously saved to a review for each peer
- Each team member receives their review
- The manager receives all of the reviews
An Interviewer must be someone who has not directly worked with the team. This could be someone from another team, the receptionist, the CFO... but not the team's manager.
The interviewer calls a team member (eg. Alice) into an office and asks:
Who did you work with since the last Peer Performance Review?
The interviewee lists some names, and the interviewer writes them down under the interviewee's name. This should include their manager, and anyone else they depended on.
Alice
Worked with: Bob, Carol, Dan, Eve
Then they ask:
Ok, let's talk about Bob. He'll be getting all the feedback you give me, but he won't know it was from you. What was working with Bob like?
And writes down general feedback about Bob, under Bob's name.
Bob
- Great worker
- Always on time
The next two questions are:
Was anything about Bob notable or impressive? Are there things Bob could have done better?
And adds those too,
Bob
- Great worker
- Always on time
- Handled the FizzBuzz problem really well
- Probably shouldn't have spent 3 months putting ASCII art into code
Finally, time to get some measurables:
On a scale of one-to-ten, five being exactly what you'd expect, 0 being none whatsoever, and 11 being too much, how has Bob's productivity been?
And lately has that been going up or going down?
How about Bob's Focus on what the client wants? And Contribution to the team?
Don't put too many metrics in the review, just whatever properties you value and want to promote within the team.
At this point Bob's notes should look something like this
Bob
- Great worker
- Always on time
- Handled the FizzBuzz problem really well
- Probably shouldn't have spent 3 months putting ASCII art into code
Productivity, Focus, Contribution:
6>, 5<, 6
(In this example Alice has said Bob's Productivity was said to be getting better, his focus worse, and his contribution level hasn't changed)
Note that in Bob's review, we have not marked who provided the feedback. If Bob feels like he can't trust the team because someone "ratted him out" about his ASCII art, he should ask the team and start a discussion about it himself.
Now that Alice has reviewed Bob, she is asked the same questions about Carol. Then Dan, and so on. Once Alice has reviewed everyone, the Interviewer gets Bob to come in and do the same review. Then Carol, and so on.
Once all the reviews are done, each person (and some other third parties) should each have a Review with several notes, and metrics. The interviewer must randomise the notes for each team member, so the notes don't just read top-to-bottom in the order the interviews were performed.
For example, Alice's completed review might look like this:
Alice
Worked with: Bob, Carol, Dan, Eve
- general point 2
- general point 1
- general point 3
- impressive point 1
- impressive point 3
- impressive point 2
- improvement point 2
- improvement point 1
Productivity, Focus, Contribution
7>- 3, 5+
2-, 3-, 5-
7-, 5-, 4-
This review shows a summary of all of Alice's feedback from her peers, without giving away who said what. It's clear that the team feels while her productivity is high, she needs motivation else it will decrease. Her focus isn't particularly good, and getting worse, and only one person thought her contribution efforts were increasing. No wonder she ragged on Bob about his ASCII art!
- Individuals are sent their own review
- They can use the feedback to help identify where to focus their efforts
- They can discuss their results with the team if they choose
- The manager is sent all the results, and will use them for his big manager decisions
- the manager schedules meetings to discuss the results with people individually
- A Peer Review only takes about 5 minutes
- As everyone is reviewing everyone, everyone will be required for about 5 minutes multiplied by the size of the team (eg for a team of 4, that's 20 mins each)
- As it's the interviewer doing all the interviews, it'll take that amount of time, multiplied by the size of the team again (80 mins). Plus about half an hour to tidy up the notes and email them out to everyone.
- the manager takes about 5 minutes per individual to review the reports
- the manager and the individuals each spend about 30 minutes in a meeting
Individuals should keep track of their review, and use them to help identify how they can add value to the team.