Performance management vs Process management
As an employee, it is common to expect a salary adjusted annually. It could be in the form of market inflation, adjustment, or promotion. That said, rewarding employee fairly for the work they did for the past year is not an easy task. Therefore, most of the time, we tend to go back to the basics, which use performance review (or any similar terms) as an indicator.
Performance management is the process of setting goals for employees or teams, evaluating their progress towards those goals, and providing feedback and support to help them improve and achieve their goals. Performance management can involve a variety of activities, including goal setting, performance evaluations, feedback, coaching, and development planning.
– OpenAI
What’s funny is there is NO standard for how is this usually being done even though they can be in the same industry (say SWE since this is something I am familiar with). It is sort of portrayed as an industry secret, but is it? Like it or not, at the end of the day, you’re at the jurisdiction of the manager and upper management to decide what you’ll be getting.
Don’t favor Performance Management
If it is about the numbers, the metrics are used to show how individuals or teams perform. I think it doesn’t show enough justice. Performance is often rule-based with some pinch of bureaucracy. For that reason, those metrics can be easily manipulated or game. Maybe, that’s why it is kept a secret?
Ultimately, they exist as an end to conduct performance reviews rather than sharpening the team’s performance. I would like my team to think team rather than make it personal and create additional political drama.
Why Process Management
Process management is the systematic approach to improving and optimizing the way an organization performs its business processes. It involves identifying, analyzing, and improving the processes that are critical to the organization’s success.
– OpenAI
The beauty of process management is kaizen. I encourage the team to look for continuous improvement (personal, team, and organization) and implement changes that increase efficiency, effectiveness, and agility.
We still use metrics (not for a performance review), as an indicator of how the team is progressing. There is no point in comparing against different teams’ metrics as they could be measuring different signals that they deem important. It encourages the team to think as a team and focus on overall improvement.
Ultimately, it still goes back to the manager to sponsor who gets what. I guess it can’t be avoided in an environment where team efforts have bigger importance compared to individual efforts. To ensure fairness across teams, calibration is needed through some anchor points such as managers that work closely with multiple teams as touch points.