Appraisal and Performance Criteria

I must have got at least a few stares and a few comments from friends that the post around How to handle Bad Appraisal was a employer perspective and very little thought was given for how one feels like when the appraisal goes wrong.

I felt it was not a employer perspective, instead it was a perspective on how one should cope up with such situation no matter what you are employee or employer... anyways, since I deal with development Teams more closely .. I also got a question that said that usually the Key Result areas or the performance evaluation critieria's are not made very clear, bench marks are not set , there are no clear definition of success and fail parameters and thus when it comes to appraisal time the developer / engineer thinks that he was the best and did the best and the Manager thinks that there was good work done, but there are a lot of things that did not go well.... So here I thought I would put together a few questions that can be used as indicators to one's performance . These questions would help define cleared goals and/or also in turn help a better appraisal process....

1. Attitude

Q. How does he/she perceive his/her job?

Q. How does he/she perceives he/she role in the Team?

Q. Do he/she stand by the Team, helping them on issues and small troubles?

Q. Do he/she needs to be called for help? or he/she walks by to help others?

Q. How does he/she take change?

Q. How does he/she work in absurd condition? tight deadline and power outages or urgent work needed to be solved but machine is slow, or long hours and so on.

Q. For a failed commitment how does he/she react? Blame on others, things, accepting mistakes, or retrospecting to improve?

2. Understanding

Q. How well does he/she understand the requirement and makes other understand it?

Q. How well does he/she adapt to the project and helps other adapt?

Q. How much of self time is spent on exploring the requirements?

Q. How much of value does he/she add to the Project?

Q. How many challenges or questions are raised by he/she

Q. How much depth is the understanding? like a high level feature understanding or a detailed scope?

3. Communication

Q. How does he/she communicate with the Teams.

Q. How frequently does he/she update about the actual progress to others?

Q. How much time is spent by him/her on the interactions related to project tasks with the Team?

Q. How well the person says YES or NO?

Q. How well does he/she explain the reason to those YES and NO

4. Reaction

Q. How does he/she react to a changed requirement at the last moment?

Q. How does he/she reacts when he/she is not center of attraction?

Q. How does he/she react to immediate and drastic change?

Q. How does he/she react to negative changes?

Q. How much of cribbing, whining, crying does he/she get past a task he/she is not supposed to do?

5. Skills

Q. How fast does he/she do his/her work?

Q. Are the core competencies utilized best?

Q. what are his/her best skills? Does he/she improvise on them?

Q. Does he/she document what and how he/she is going to do the task?

Q. Does he/she demonstrate frequent and consistent improvement?

Q. Does he/she actually do things instead of just talking about them?

6. Quality

Q. Is the quality of work done good?

Q. How many iterations happen when he/she does some work like estimation? Plans etc?

Q. How many bugs are created on the work done by him/her?

Q. How much of re-engineering and rework has been done on the task done by him/her?

Q. How much self initiatives are driven by him/her in improving the quality of the product?

Q. How many bugs are caught during the testing, by the customers, by him/her self?

7. Organization

Q. How does he/she manager his/her time?

Q. is he/she planned and organized?

Q. How is his/her desk kept? clean, dirty?

Q. How well does he/she plan the meetings and other times?

Q. Are the estimates given by him/her met? if not why?

8. Ownership

Q. Does he/she care about the module and takes he/she is doing?

Q. Do he/she take responsibility and show authority on his/her task?

Q. Is he/she passionate about what they are doing?

Well these are just those few questions that you as a Manager needs to ask yourself when you are putting someone on a performance appraisal. Pull these questions, customize it to your Team and let them answer these for themselves.. Your development Team's may get the best answers for themselves... Keep a lot of scope for project or release driven retrospectives as they are the best indicators of how one did...

In the end remember this is just one way to know what improvements you need to pull over for your Team instead of having a discussion "I did everything you asked me for, now why is it a bad appraisal?" or "You did OK , but not great"

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How to handle a Bad Appraisal?

There is a time each year when each one of us undergoes the very very critical thing in our professional lives... Performance Review and Appraisal. Believe me it is as much of a hell for the person under going it as it is for the person doing it. Performance review no matter how much ever clear definitions of Key Result Areas are, how much ever clear review a performer undergoes through... Performance review can be most depressing. Though the name is suggestive enough to be inspiring, in reality this is the most critical phase that see's low moral for a lot of employees.

I have undergone a few really bad performance reviews and undergone some of the best ones.. Here I wish to share the experience and things to do.. so for those who come under such situation can maybe get some help handling the situation...

1. Dont gather conclusions, gather facts

The immediate and worse issue of any bad appraisal is the fact that the employee draws immediate conclusions to them... X person was favoured. Y is a useless manager, Z things were not considered correctly and so on. Conclusions drawn in haste cause a mental trauma in the post bad appraisal period. In the influence of quick drawn conclusions the intention of appraisal is missed out and you forget to enjoy the real benefits you draw from the whole process.

2. Speak up, Open up and ask questions without been defensive

A lot of bad appraisals happen because the employees are not communicative enough. It is important that post bad appraisal a clear time is given to thought and the reaction to the appraisal is communicated to the Appraiser in the best possible way. If certain task done by you had issues try to ask for what and how. Getting defensive is the worst mistake a lot of people do.. causing a wrong impression in the mind of the appraiser. Stand back, take time, collect the details of the points that affect negatively and communicate more on those topics, rather defending on what best things you did.

3. Comparison is outdated

The misery of a bad appraisal is a conflict that arises between colleagues. A developer working in my team earlier would not care as much about his own appraisal as he would for the rest of the people in the Team. Resulted in his best appraisals also sounded like the worst of his own appraisal. Comparison of reviews and appraisals is a waste of energy and effort.

4. Mobs are destructive

A bad or good review when discussed in a mob turns ugly. This is such a topic that when it meets the group it turns like ammonia smelling from a rose. I once gave a real time example to a friend on how mob can be destructive in making, drawing and converting a good thing to a worst thing....

A friend of mine wanted to discuss with us when he wanted to marry a girl he liked.. he wanted his friends to suggest him if he was doing a right thing.. and he raised this when everyone met together and were drunk... To the likes and dislikes of each soul he got several questions.. a few of them made him take back his decision and in turn loose the love of his life. The questions and suggestions he got ranged from "Is she a virgin? How is it possible?" to "I think she dominates you" and "I think she is less beautiful than your ex"... whoa... how destructive can a mob get on sensitive topics? Well I would put this topic for future sometime on why...

5. Review, Reform and Analyse

A lot of bad performances result in bad decisions and steps too... The first thing to do after a bad appraisal is to review yourself, understand what went good and what went bad. Analyse and try to structure an action path. This should include those retrospectives that you missed in your offence.

6. Calculate Growth

Review and calculate the growth options for yourself. A lot of people turn to change or hop jobs thinking that their bad review or appraisal is a step towards there demise. Try to ask and identify what and how much you mean to the Team or the organization. Check for your growth options and evaluate if those options would make you happy for future.

7. Communicate

The disaster that causes the post bad review period is the communication. Sitting with a frown face, reacting with a negative mood, not co-operating or bitching around are the symptoms that show the true professional value or ethics you carry. Communicate in a effective and direct way with the appraiser with positive and strong annotations about your expectations and also about what you intend to do. This helps in building a strong relationship at the same time concluding the ethical values of a professional attitude.

8. Dig the reality than building the dream palaces

Unlike drawing conclusions the post bad review period forces anyone to build palaces of assumptions that can very well hurt the morale not only for self but for others. A reality check is necessary.. what , How , Why and When are the legitimate questions to ask for.

9. Never spread negativity

A lot of people are due to spread negativity about bosses, about organization, about people about appraisers and many more such thing... this is the most ugly thing to do and get known for doing it.. Causes the fact that your image gets built as a Bad influence... And this impression can cause more troubles than console anything else. Bitching about people, blaming others, cribbing and similar acts are symptoms of this.

10. Stand up, Back it up

The stand someone takes in times of disasters is a stand well appreciated. Stand up and support the backend system instead of blaming it. This is the right time when your influence is seen and your potential identified.

Well of course there are quite a few more to do things that can get you out of the bad review mood.. the important element is here to assert the reality and do a check of what is good and what is bad... For a bad appraisal may just be waiting on another turn you intend to take or another path you want to draw.... or maybe you would be on another side of the table .. reading or doing a Google search for such topics on how to handle the Teams... As Managers it is important that you are motivated and prepared to handle this...

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The 5 F's of Appraisal

So back to the Appraisals, the yearly appraisals in our organisation are finally over... and with no approvals or KRA's on my head I thought would be worth writing a short complain email....when 9 yrs ago my first appraisal happened I was shocked, surprised and confused... with several questions in mind and in brains, lot of emotions in heart and soul. Over a period of time my view and reactions about appraisals changed from a 0 to 360 degree vertical.... its fun been on both sides of the table... however one thing I realised had always been a problem is many times the appraiser and apraisee both dont know why appraisals are really held, why waste 3 hrs documenting what you have done in the last year and then listen from your reviewer on what you havent done and how good you are NOT. To subsidize this find a letter of appraisal saying that you ahve received a 2% hike in your salaries due to appraisals as Motivation... Boy what a Motivation ;)

There are a few things that Managers need to understand and mind it they need to understand this well and right...if the 4 F's of appriasal are handled well they wont lead to the 5th one ...

F for Fair :- The first appraisal of my life taught me that if the Appraisal is not fair it may lead to distress and dissolution of teams.. Culture, Team, Spirit, bonding all will be lost and most importantly TRUST. I spent some time analysing the mentality of any person Jr. or Sr. after he comes out of appraisal... believe me not many come happy out of this... A developer thinks that his Manager never spoke to him for all year and now he says that I was not doing well. To the matter of fact many of the times clear allegations are made that the following person is biased and thus my appraisal is bad, several times personal conflicts are allegated to play a role in negative appraisals and some times they are true ;).
So how to make the Appraisal fair?
It's easy if you follow it ;). The Appraiser needs to appraise and the employee needs to review if the appraisal is done correctly ;). It has to be clear and finite with definately Positive and Negative comments that are comprised from the events and incidents that had taken place in the past few days... A simple example for the Managers is maintaining a sheet that speaks about every resource's incident diary for all the good and "wana improve" elements covered...


F for Fulsome :- "Today I had 3 " sounds so incomplete, just imagine if the feedback is incomplete what will it cause? Every single person on the earth needs complete information.. so why are the appraisals incomplete? Just mentioning you did not deliver on time doesnt make sense... however it makes sense when you mention that the following day of the following release is one example where we could have done XXX things better to make the delivery XXX in time might probably give more effect. In one of my previous organisations I tried a very different approach when I had to make it more complete... I channelised a few activities that included seminars, games and debate sessions and discussed all of the persons KRA's, the fact that appraisal lasted for 5 days ensured that the appraisal process in its entire was appreciated and ended happily...

Another problems with appraisals are that most of the appraisals are meant to consider only the sliding down parts of a persons work year... meaning only positive climbs are considered in the appraisal and not the Negative climbs(For those who dont understand Negative climbs these climbs are those steps that you took which lead to failure but gave you a good experience).

F for Feedback :- The misery of appraisals is that it is reverse in action then what it means... the Feedback part of the appraisal is not really treated to feed back the actions for the last season or feed with inputs for the next season, instead it has become a formal way of communicating the displeasure ;). The feedback has to be clear and sound and should be given with the right state of mind in a right state of mind to ensure that it is treated as feedback..

F for frequent :- Once a year appraisal is like once a year Sex.... Now because my blog talks about sex quite often I think no one here would be wanting to have it this late? Well honestly the more of this you have frequently the more healthier the relationship is... A every month feedback is the best approach for a bigger team while a weekly or bi-weekly for a smaller Team... Feedback has to come from all ends and frequently to get someone accelerate fast in the careers...

I asked one toxic and one Alpha Manager to expand the 4 F's with whatever words they can recollect instantly in relation to appraisal and the answer they gave themselves can tell you what would be the appraisal like:

Toxic Leader / Manager
F - Flexible
F - Formal
F - Framed
F - Faded

Alpha Leader / Manager
F - Full
F - Follow up
F - Factual
F - Fanatical

When I derive the context to the words they re-collected I spell them like this:
Flexible :- The Appraiser can decide what it means ;)
Formal :- It is just for the sake and more formal than casual.
Framed :- Because it is framed it is also flexible and formal ;)
Faded :- Nothing comes out of the process

while for the other part:
Full - Says everything in the most positive manner possible
Follw up :- Appraisal is complimented with a pre and post follow up and continous feedback.
Factual :- Real , Completely real.
Fanatical :- The appraisal returns in a fantastic outcome of successfull future ;)

Many a times and Many of we Managers fail to follow up on one or all of these F's that surely leads to the next F of appraisal and that is FUCKED UP Appraisal. Yes if any or all of these 4 F's are missed your appraisal is the 5th F.. now dont hesitate to tell your Boss that if he is up for your appraisal he ensures that he is prepared with the 4 F's ;)

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