assessing individuals on teams

[dotnetguy]

Hi, some orgs try to assess individual team members based on individual velocity. A manager was sharing his thoughts on this with me and I ended up describing my personal philosophy although I hadn't really thought about it before.

I like to keep things simple. There are 3 categories of people. Level 1 includes people who others commonly consider to be superstars. Level 3 includes difficult people who are impossible to coach. Level 2 includes people who are average so by definition includes most people.

Using this simple scale keeps things simple and fair I think. What are your thoughts?

[Ron Jeffries]

Andrew,

On Apr 27, 2015, at 10:51 PM, dotnetguy <andrew.d....@gmail.com> wrote:

Using this simple scale keeps things simple and fair I think.  What are your thoughts?

I give it a 1 on a scale of zero to ten.

Ron Jeffries

ronjeffries.com

Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor -- Anne Lamott

[John Miller]

Categorizing people is detrimental & counterproductive. It is a "power over" mindset. It is neither simple, fair, informative, nor helpful. You will create resentment & resistance with such a scale. What need are you trying to meet?

Thank You,
John Miller
Agile Classrooms
Clarity.Choice.Collaboration
AgileClassrooms.com

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[Yves]

And as an example the category superstar and difficult to coach don't exist.
Some people don't like to be forced coaching on, (which a lot of agile transformations , try to do)
These are your biggest supporters once you can reach them.

A lot of people that you call superstar, fall in that category .

They think they are really good in what they do . (And so do the people around them) so why would they listen to a coach?

Y

scrambled by yPhone

[Markus Gärtner]

Are you seriously proposing a stack ranking based upon how hard or easy you find it to work with people?

Best Markus

-- 

Dipl.-Inform. Markus Gärtner
Author of ATDD by Example - A Practical Guide to Acceptance
Test-Driven Development

http://www.shino.de/blog
http://www.mgaertne.de
http://www.it-agile.de
Twitter: @mgaertne

[Kamlesh]

Hi Andrew,

I'm sure you know, you get what you ask for (or measure). Organizations assessing individual's velocity will get 'individuals' and will also get 'individual velocity' that they are looking for. However, if they want to tap in to the collective wisdom of the team, to deliver impact and meaningful value for their customers, that's what they would need to ask for.

Douglas McGregor's theory of human motivation, theory X and Y calls out, rarely a manager believing in theory X has Y type people reporting to her and vice-versa. Positive Psychologist and Harvard Professor Shawn Achor explains that a manager's belief and bias about a team member manifests in the way of behavior, opportunities provided and also the way the manager assesses his team member. So be careful in how you categorize people.

I would like to quote what my friend - Madhur Kathuria (CSC, CST) says - "Build a superstar team instead of team with superstars." An effective ScrumMaster can play a vital role in building that team synergy.

Thanks,

Kamlesh Ravlani

linkedin.com/in/ravlani | twitter.com/kravlani

[Yves Hanoulle]

said in other words:

when I treat my children like adults they behave like adults,when I treat adults like children, they behave like children.

yes their are limits about what you can ask children to do, yet they are much much lower as what most people think they actually are.  I don't think there are limits about how adults will behave as children...

y

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Yves Hanoulle 

Phone 00 32 476 43 38 32

PS: Gratis omwille van het nieuwe schooljaar: Programmeren voor kinderen: http://www.leanpub.com/programmerenvoorkinderen

[Andy Watkins]

Have you considered the "oil" person? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_Role_Inventories#Teamworker) He isn't necessarily the most productive on his own, but helps to make the whole team a superstar team.

Andy Watkins

[Yves Hanoulle]

Andy, is the "you" in your question me? if not, who is the "you"?

I'm asking because I don't see a relation with your advice and any of the previous mails.

please help me see the link (which I 'm sure there is for you, I would like to see it too)

y

[Ron Jeffries]

I took the question to be aimed at OP and to be an example of something important that his model did not handle.

R

On Apr 29, 2015, at 5:33 AM, Yves Hanoulle <Yv...@paircoaching.net> wrote:

Andy, is the "you" in your question me? if not, who is the "you"?

I'm asking because I don't see a relation with your advice and any of the previous mails.

please help me see the link (which I 'm sure there is for you, I would like to see it too)

Ron Jeffries
ronjeffries.com
Isn’t testing quality in a lot like weaving straw into gold?
— George Cameron

[Andy Watkins]

Yves,

sorry, I wasn't very clear. I was speaking to Andrew who posted the original question.

Assuming Andrew's client intends to use Scrum to improve productivity, it seems a little naive to categorise the individuals into 3 groups which is likely to pit them against eachother. I've seen "superstar programmers" who are hard to tame, and who don't like being coached. I've seen people who'll never become amazing programmers, but they have something about them that makes the team work well together. I suppose, what I'm trying to say is that the levels 1-3 thing doesn't fit very well in Scrum, in my experience. 

Andy

[Yves]

Ok that is clear.

Thanks for explaining...

scrambled by yPhone

[miked]

Andrew

Would you agree that all of your criteria have a basis in the interactions of people and the resultant forming of opinions of others based on those interactions?

Given that would it not be good practice to look at those opinion pairs and try to draw a profile of the people interacting.

You might come up with these three need levels

1.  needs a glass belly button as they can't seem to see beyond themselves.

2.  needs to understand teamwork

3.  needs to help others learn to improve