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Subject:Re: Measuring Productivity From:"Brian F. Gregg, N04-3A, ext. 2724" <bgregg -at- FOXBORO -dot- COM> Date:Wed, 9 Nov 1994 17:25:11 LCL
Marilynne intones:
>> Communicators (the creative types that we are) don't like being
>> linked to productivity.
>I certainly agree with that. Are engineers tracked for productivity?
>Programmers? When part of your job is creating something or solving
>problems, the productivity measurements fall flat.
>I was once required to list daily how many pages I edited (simple, medium,
>difficult)...
(cut about the counting she had to do)
>...and go back to doing the work I was hired to do. My boss would tell you
>I was also hired to do the productivity measurements.
>However, I felt it was more important to translate engineereze into nice
>readable copy. I was really good at that.
>Was I wrong? Did you ever have to count pages?
While I feel that metrics are necessary in planning improvement, metrics
that make one count one's output are of the wrong type. What really should
be measured is the quality (errors per page, document, etc. or first pass
yield). Some of these may involve measuring quantity. In those cases, there
should be some automated mechanism in place. I believe manual counting is
"counter"productive, not to mention a morale crusher.
