KPI’S and OKR’s

Don’t measure what you can't control

Once upon a time when I worked as an Engineering Manager I was asked by the CEO to report on certain KPI’s in order to measure and control performance of the development team.

We had KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) such as “Development hours per developer and day” measured by that the developers reported time spent every day. Jira's per developer, hours worked on technical tickets, percentage of working days spent in meetings, Average time in X status, etc, etc.

The list goes on and on. I even appraised the team with the most working hours per week. Gave budget for team dinners. I was so wrong. If I would be asked the same today, I would not do it that way.

Let me be clear, time spent on developing something has nothing to do with performance or output or anything. What it does though, is that it tries to measure something in order for it to be controlled. This is from the old factory notion that: “What you don't measure you can’t control” which was also popular in old school waterfall project management.

What it does do is taking your attention away from what’s important, the people. Trying to convert their efforts to numbers. It’s not possible, and will be wrong. Also as a KPI. The reasons for development teams to be able to deliver great code is culture, motivation and flow – let them do their thing. Don't interrupt with a lot of nonsense.

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