6th Sense Analytics — Big Brother Watching or Data-Driven Coaching?
The Personal Software Process (PSP) is one of the historical drivers to HackyStat and the 6th Sense Analytics model. I remember when PSP was first introduced in the mid 1990's. At that time there was a tremendous amount of concern surrounding the use of the detailed data that each engineer was collecting. Not so much at the individual level, since the vast majority of developers who underwent PSP training enthusiastically supported the technique and were amazed by the insights that this level of performance data could provide. Those most concerned were the methodologists and pundits of software managers and leaders.
Traditional wisdom at the time was that command-driven managers couldn't handle the truth of the data and would somehow misuse it when judging, rewarding and leading the team. In fact, early PSP trainers were required to hide individual data from leaders so that they couldn't discern individual characteristics. As with many things, I believe this was a gross overreaction connected to a lack of faith in the maturity and skill of software management. While there are always a few "Bad Apples" in any profession, I firmly believe that most software managers are competent, thoughtful and caring leaders. However, they are in the business of leading teams toward delivering business value and making wise trade-offs between speed, quality, content and people.
From a PSP perspective, I’m unaware of a single, documented instance where having finely grained data to understand team performance and capabilities has led to a project failure. I would hazard a guess that data is not a project failure attribute, whereas a lack of it is.
One of the factors that make software leadership so challenging is the lack of deep insight into actual team operation. I liken it to driving a car at night without my glasses and turning off the lights. Yes, it's that dangerous! Given this lack of insight, I think leaders are making the very best decisions they can, but it is not surprising that over 60% of software projects are still failing.
Instead of worrying about what negative things managers, leaders, project managers, and executives might do with performance metrics data, I would rather focus on the POSITIVE possibilities. Here are just a few ideas for the pessimistic:
- You can actually estimate work based on productive Active Time instead of guessing.
- You can constructively evaluate the true performance levels of your team members and make more effective work assignments.
- You can evaluate Flow Time and modify organizational dynamics to improve focus (Flow Time) and actually see measured effects of the changes.
- Team members can learn where and how to improve their development performance
Insights like these can do nothing but increase the effectiveness of software leaders and their team. Turning well intentioned, but data deprived managers into powerful and insightful coaches of high performance teams.
The Deming quote applies very well here - "In God we Trust, All Others Bring Data". Data is nothing to be afraid of and will lead you towards much better results. All it takes is a little data, insight and perhaps courage.
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amercier ( 2006.6.07 4:37 pm )