I find that collaborative approaches work better for lower cycle time and increased throughput. That’s why I care about flow. (See Flow Metrics and Why They Matter to Teams and Managers for the details.)
If we don’t care about flow—if we focus on resource efficiency instead of flow efficiency—then sure, we can (attempt to) “measure” an individual’s “performance.”
But even if you think we can measure people, no one person can deliver something useful. Yes, we might ask people to work as experts, as in the value stream map above. But notice how many steps these people require to deliver something useful. And, notice the delays while people wait for others.
Then, contrast that Expert-focused value stream map with this one, the collaborative value stream map:
To see the entire story about those value stream maps, check out this 4-part series that starts here: How to Use Value Stream Maps to Reinforce Agility & Effectiveness, Part 1 (Expert Teams).
That’s why I find flow-based thinking so useful. Flowing the work through the team is the most important measure of success because that flow produces something useful to a customer or user. And that means that measuring anyone’s performance is meaningless. Instead, performance management becomes blame, credit, and parceling out small units of money.
How Performance Management Feels to the People Being Measured
I have learned many things via feedback. Unfortunately, I have learned much less from performance reviews. As a manager, I tried to write good performance reviews. In reality, they were summary of our one-on-ones. No one was surprised by any of my performance reviews.
However, my management clients seem to think that even in an “agile” culture of flow efficiency, performance reviews are useful. Why? Because they can assign blame or credit to an individual. Then, with blame or credit, the manager feels better about how much of a salary increase, they can give the person.
This is all about the managers’ feelings. Not the people who the manager attempts to measure.
Here’s the thing: Everyone I know in an organization is an adult. These adults don’t just work in your organization. They have long-term relationships with other people (and pets). They enter into multi-year financial contracts, such as mortgages. What does this mean about these adults? They are responsible for themselves, and with and to other people. In sum, they are trustworthy.
Performance management can destroy that trust.
Not feedback—we all need feedback to know how we appear to others and to choose if we should change something. But managing their performance? Not if we care about flow.
I realize I’m a voice in the wilderness. So I have a real suggestion: start measuring management performance.
Measure Management Performance
This is a value stream map of how one portfolio team made decisions.
Notice all the delays because of the wait states. The decision only required 6 hours. But the total cycle time was over 1000 hours, over 40 days.
What would you say if a team took 40 days to deliver a feature? I do not think anyone would be happy.
If managers want to measure performance, they can start with themselves. That might help them realize what they want to measure. I am sure it’s not about individual deliverables—it has to be about valuable outcomes.
But I don’t find measuring performance is useful at all, especially not if we want to flow work through the organization as fast as possible. Instead, we can create a culture of feedback, where everyone is accountable to each other.