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To add to this, using numbers is a common mistake for agile estimation. Better to use things like t-shirt sizes. The problem is estimates aren’t associative, but making them numbers geatly increases the odds that someone will try to add them together anyways. And the biggest mistake is to give the numbers units of time. An expectation that a 3 point story will take X hours is particularly bad as that reporting gets higher in the org chart, since the only focus will tend to be on the translated time.

Your gamification example and using agile velocity to rank individuals is it’s own dark pattern too. The team should be the unit when doing agile, everyone has their strengths and weaknesses, but ranking due to to ticket closes is lazy, and so many factors that increase team velocity. For instance just having someone on the team who can tackle the bigger ticket can hugely improve team performace, as can having someone good at closing lots of little tickets. Neither is necessarily more important to the team, but having them both can be really effective.

I can tell you from experience that point quotas however it’s measured is its own mistake, that will lead to substandard teams. I was lucky enough to have enough clout at a previous job that every time management tried to go this route I was able to push back long enough that general productivity had a chance to improve without this sword of damacles causing morale problems.

And if you work for a place that has billable hours, I’m sorry. Much of my advice, while applicable, may be trumped by needs around client billing. Hopefully you make enough money to deal with this kind of stress...




What happens when t-shirt sizes end up mapped to the same point values when evaluation time comes around? My current company is in a belt tightening cycle, and recently introduced stack ranking. Implicit metrics are still metrics, even if they're lazy.


Yeah, this has a tendency to happen, it's sort of the constant fight. You can really only fight it with metrics, you can sort of start to show that 3tiny+1med tends to be equivalent to 1 large tends to be equivalent to 5small, or whatever. At the end of the day, you're trying to make it as hard as possible to simply add numbers. People will naturally try to map these things to ordinal numbers, and it's important to sort of keep a light constant pressure to prevent this the further away from the team you go. You need to start by training your team and your PMs and your manager to avoid this as much as possible. It's their job to train their stake holders and bosses in turn. I can tell you from experience that it's an incredible amount of effort, but the benefits are really worth it. Having a team with space to be effective is a magical place to be. I still mourn needing to leave that team and organization.


Oh, and sorry about stack ranking. It can be the beginning of the end. Job market is bad right now. But it might be wise to look at postings, and see what techs you want to brush up on. I’ve seen stack ranking destroy orgs, especially since good teams tend to disproportionally attract good talent. But management never believes that your whole team is above average.


I fortunately have had my eye on the exit for a while, and am set to leave soon. The rest of my current team isn't so lucky.




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