Delivering a quality product within time and budget constraints, consistently. Oh, but that's a
team effort, you say? Well, that's the working environment, isn't it? Projects are an awfully coarse measurement, you say? Well, that's the only deliverable that matters.
I recall reading years ago (in Peopleware or one of its contemporaries) about a company's evaluation of one of its coders. She was definitely mediocre by every measure they had. But someone noticed that every project she was on succeeded, over many projects and many years. Though she wasn't a monster at the keyboard, something she brought to the team engendered success. How productive was she? Would you want to hire her and have her on your team?
You must measure what you actually care about. Measuring things that you think are factors is fine and noble, but if you're not measuring the actual "product" of "productivity" then you'll never know how well your factors correlate with the real goal.
I recall reading years ago (in Peopleware or one of its contemporaries) about a company's evaluation of one of its coders. She was definitely mediocre by every measure they had. But someone noticed that every project she was on succeeded, over many projects and many years. Though she wasn't a monster at the keyboard, something she brought to the team engendered success. How productive was she? Would you want to hire her and have her on your team?
You must measure what you actually care about. Measuring things that you think are factors is fine and noble, but if you're not measuring the actual "product" of "productivity" then you'll never know how well your factors correlate with the real goal.