2009-01-05

People do two things

People tend to do two things.  What they think is fun and what they are measured on.

Measuring is a two-edged sword and should be used with prejudice.
Giving people fun things to work with is more like icecream with a strawberry on top.

Like this:

People do things they are measured on.  Since one cannot measure brilliancy and why-you-rise-in-the-morning, measuring tends to give focus to other things like klocs or amount of green unit test lights.

I worked with a guy who was fast as lightning with the drawback that everything was finished the first day; often even before the code was written.  So instead of harrassing him about estimates and CRUD I let him hack away and just finished what he started.  His focus was code code code and my became customer satisfaction.  Both of us where satisfied.

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