
Does your e-mail reveal how productive you are? - robg
http://www.slate.com/id/2226312/pagenum/all/#p2
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embeddedradical
oh i know the answer to this one: no.

when you're really busy it may in the form of things that go out, like sending
e-mails, especially if you're not a programmer -- and sometimes when you're
really busy, you have sent no e-mails in a while....because you're busy
working on something. today i plan to send one e-mail: prototype complete, and
published at this url.

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edw519
This is an interesting approach to add data to see how well someone is doing
processing invoices, following up on customer requests, or coordinating a
large project.

For programming, it's an utter disaster. Not because of technical or privacy
issues (which are quite real), but because for certain jobs, there is
absolutely no correlation between apparent activity and achievement.

This has been a serious issue in almost every shop I've ever worked in.
Whenever a phb got concerned because he observed what he thought was a lack of
activity by me or any of my people, I have always responded the same way, with
a copy of the project plan and one question, "Exactly where are we behind and
what makes you think so?" No good answer? Then STFU.

"Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four
sharpening the axe." - Abraham Lincoln.

I guess if you examined Lincoln's emails and logs, he would have looked like
quite the slacker.

~~~
DannoHung
Maybe some sort of per-worker hidden metric formula based on commits, tests
added, emails, and meetings attended (segmented up on who invited you and
whether you were mandatory or not) could be used. During calibration phases, a
more detailed interpersonal study could be used to figure out if the metrics
were accurate or not and adjust in kind.

I mean, a _good, benevolent_ boss could use information like that to figure
out when a worker was having trouble and attempt to assist, but the more
likely scenario is that a malevolent boss would just abuse such a system.

~~~
edw519
_Maybe some sort of per-worker hidden metric formula based on..._

Perhaps I didn't state my case well enough. Let me try this...

The correlation between activity and achievement is not only irrelevant, it
could be worse; it could be negative.

If you have lots of commits, why? Didn't you code it right in the first place?

If you're doing lots of testing, why? Didn't you write it well enough in the
first place?

Why are you emailing and going to meetings so much? Aren't you able to conduct
analysis more efficiently?

There questions are all, obviously, ridiculous. Activity is an indicator of
nothing. So why collect it? The number of flies landing of flowers in Peru is
just as good an indicator of your achievement as the number of commits,
emails, etc.

This is a idea that must be resisted so that maybe, just maybe, managers might
learn how to manage and forget the gimmicks.

~~~
tetha
I have to nitpick that you mean "measurable activity" whenever you say
activity, since thinking about a problem and planning a solution in your head
is certainly activity, we just don't have measures for it yet.

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dotpavan
related note: <http://code.google.com/p/mail-trends/> provides great insights
into our own and the recipients' mailing trends

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moonchuck
I could see this being useful for identifying and studying groups of people
with similar habits and then targeting those groups differently.

But labeling people as more or less productive based on their habits with
certain types of applications sounds a little nonsensical to me. Where's the
focus on meaningful results?

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sketerpot
What I worry about is mismeasurement. They seem to have a clever classifier,
but how are they training it?

(My concerns here are relative to the mismeasurement of employee productivity
that arises from having humans doing the evaluations.)

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wallflower
It is easy to confuse activity with productivity.

For example, spending four hours on non results-producing activities like
paperwork instead of sales.

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lazyant
An example of a solution looking for a problem.

