Unintended consequences of measurement: Boomerang Measurements
Donald Gray posts a good example of measurement gone wrong. A software development team manager implemented a measurement system that penalised the team if they had unfinished work at the end of a work cycle, even if the reason they had unfinished work was that they finished their existing work early and started the next phase of the project.
… Hoping to point to some future perfect day where the team was burning down faster than anticipated I added, “It’s just like when the sprint burns down faster than estimated. You pick the next story from the Product Backlog and start work on it.”
George replied “We’d never do that. We get graded on how well we complete our stories. If we have unfinished work it counts against us.”
via Integrating People, Projects, and Processes : Boomerang Measurements.
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Doug,
Since your mission involves creating healthy relationships with vendors, you may be interested in learning from Prof. Kenneth Sullivan at Arizona State University. I just heard his lecture. Excellent. More on his work is at http://construction.asu.edu .
Gary Cokins, SAS
Thanks Gary,
I’ll check it out.