I don’t think anyone is saying it’s a good solution. It’s one amongst many bad ones that are used because that’s what we have. For example, I’ve been running a remote team for 8ish years now and I keep begging people to have conversations in public channels. One of the reasons is to see who’s spending a lot of time lending a hand. Guess what, devs refuse to do that. So what am I supposed to do?
I have a person who I highly suspect isn’t doing much work, and is basically rotating through other team members to help him get unstuck. Not a bad guy, but probably not up to our standards. Just ask people you say? Many cultures don’t allow for someone to say bad things about their coworker even if it would help to improve the team.
I’m not arguing for any one solution because I don’t know of any magical solution. If you have better metrics or management skills than what everyone in the world has figured out, myself and many others would gladly adopt these approaches.
I have a person who I highly suspect isn’t doing much work, and is basically rotating through other team members to help him get unstuck. Not a bad guy, but probably not up to our standards. Just ask people you say? Many cultures don’t allow for someone to say bad things about their coworker even if it would help to improve the team.
I’m not arguing for any one solution because I don’t know of any magical solution. If you have better metrics or management skills than what everyone in the world has figured out, myself and many others would gladly adopt these approaches.