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[Why not build programmer performance measurement tooling?] It's the job of a manager to know what their reports are up to, and whether they're doing a good job of it, and are generally effective. If they can't do that, then they themselves are ineffective, and that is the sort of thing that is the responsibility of THEIR manager, and so on up the line.Agreed wholeheartedly, but for slightly different reasons. To wit, laziness and Goodhart's law. [0]
In the absence of infinite time, automation will excuse a lack of manager curiosity, as other competing tasks absorb the freed time.
Consequently, most managers with automated dashboards showing performance metrics won't use those dashboards... plus all the person-to-person work they were previously doing. They'll only use those dashboards.
Which then slowly but inexorably turns your employees into dashboard-optimization drones via operant conditioning.
Helping a colleague doesn't show up on the dashboards? Fuck that. Digging into what looks like a security vulnerability isn't on the sprint board? Fuck that.
Which is incredibly corrosive to quality, creative system design.
And then, because this is the work reality you've created, the creative folks you really want working there bail for greener pastures, and you're left with bottom of the barrel talent and retention problems.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart's_law
Agreed wholeheartedly, but for slightly different reasons. To wit, laziness and Goodhart's law. [0]
In the absence of infinite time, automation will excuse a lack of manager curiosity, as other competing tasks absorb the freed time.
Consequently, most managers with automated dashboards showing performance metrics won't use those dashboards... plus all the person-to-person work they were previously doing. They'll only use those dashboards.
Which then slowly but inexorably turns your employees into dashboard-optimization drones via operant conditioning.
Helping a colleague doesn't show up on the dashboards? Fuck that. Digging into what looks like a security vulnerability isn't on the sprint board? Fuck that.
Which is incredibly corrosive to quality, creative system design.
And then, because this is the work reality you've created, the creative folks you really want working there bail for greener pastures, and you're left with bottom of the barrel talent and retention problems.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart's_law