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Jul. 29th, 2007
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Michel Gondry is a genius
Jul. 29th, 2007 11:39 amHe solves a Rubik's Cube with his fet
(and how its done)
Then he solves it with his nose.
(how that's done).
The first is just fascinating - and my hat's off to the man who worked it out.
The second is hilarious.
(and how its done)
Then he solves it with his nose.
(how that's done).
The first is just fascinating - and my hat's off to the man who worked it out.
The second is hilarious.
Measuring without changing
Jul. 29th, 2007 12:31 pmProblem: Some people are crap at their job.
Solution: Find out which ones and either get them to improve or get rid of them.
Problem: Identify which ones are crap at their job.
Solution 1: Measure people's results and compare them to expected "good" results.
Solution 2: Have senior/experienced people look at the way people work and tell them when/where they're going wrong.
Problem with solution 1: Measurement is an overhead, causing inefficiency by taking time away from real work, and annoying people who just want to get on with their jobs.
Solution: Keep measurement to a minimum for people that are doing a good job, concentrate measurement and oversight on people who are less experienced or who have had recent problems.
Other problem with solution 1: Imposing metrics causes people to produce results that match those metrics - "Teaching to the test". (Measure coders by the lines of code they produce and they will produce ridiculous amounts of it.) As most jobs are too complex to be reduced to a series of metrics, introducing strong ones either completely distorts the work produced or causes large amount of extra work as people both fulfill the metrics _and_ get the work done.
Solution: Not at all sure. Reducing measurement for people that are doing a good job would help, but having metrics at all will distort things in unwanted ways. I'm not at all sure this is solvable.
Problem with solution 2: Experienced people are frequently wedded to their own methods, corrupt or otherwise biased.
Solution: Sufficient openness might mediate against this - and this is something that I'd like to see tried. Getting responses from all the people that deal with a particular person would hopefully compensate for any one person's bias. And anonymous feedback methods can be very helpful (although frequently hated by the people being reported on - sites that allow students to give anonymous ratings of their teachers have caused a massive fuss recently).
Overall I can't think of anything bulletproof. Anyone got any thoughts?
Solution: Find out which ones and either get them to improve or get rid of them.
Problem: Identify which ones are crap at their job.
Solution 1: Measure people's results and compare them to expected "good" results.
Solution 2: Have senior/experienced people look at the way people work and tell them when/where they're going wrong.
Problem with solution 1: Measurement is an overhead, causing inefficiency by taking time away from real work, and annoying people who just want to get on with their jobs.
Solution: Keep measurement to a minimum for people that are doing a good job, concentrate measurement and oversight on people who are less experienced or who have had recent problems.
Other problem with solution 1: Imposing metrics causes people to produce results that match those metrics - "Teaching to the test". (Measure coders by the lines of code they produce and they will produce ridiculous amounts of it.) As most jobs are too complex to be reduced to a series of metrics, introducing strong ones either completely distorts the work produced or causes large amount of extra work as people both fulfill the metrics _and_ get the work done.
Solution: Not at all sure. Reducing measurement for people that are doing a good job would help, but having metrics at all will distort things in unwanted ways. I'm not at all sure this is solvable.
Problem with solution 2: Experienced people are frequently wedded to their own methods, corrupt or otherwise biased.
Solution: Sufficient openness might mediate against this - and this is something that I'd like to see tried. Getting responses from all the people that deal with a particular person would hopefully compensate for any one person's bias. And anonymous feedback methods can be very helpful (although frequently hated by the people being reported on - sites that allow students to give anonymous ratings of their teachers have caused a massive fuss recently).
Overall I can't think of anything bulletproof. Anyone got any thoughts?
