Software Engineering Performance Management
Software engineering teams need to meet rigorous production metrics to stay competitive, but how do leaders measure and manage their employees’ performance?
One minute insights:
- Software engineering leaders measure performance using project management tools like Jira
- Many measure employee performance as a way to address problems, like bugs and project delays
- Engineering leaders set clear goals and offer ongoing training to improve their employees’ performance
- Many are satisfied with their process for employee performance management, but a lack of leadership support can act as a barrier for those who aren’t satisfied
- Better alignment with business objectives is a top benefit of employee performance management
Software engineering leaders use project management tools to measure performance, and many do so at least quarterly
66% of respondents use project management tools like Jira to monitor and evaluate their employees’ performance. Scheduled progress check-ins (58%) and formal, one-on-one reviews (57%) were also common approaches.
42% of respondents use Workday HCM to manage their employees’ performance.
Question: What’s one thing you wish everyone knew about performance management on software engineering teams?
Question: What advice would you give to other leaders in regard to evaluating engineering team performance?
Peer input into the assessment is critical for a manager to fully know and evaluate performance.
Make sure your team understands the value that a performance management system provides. Engineers aren’t always aware of this.
Tech leaders measure performance to address problems, and they look at how employees use documentation
60% of respondents aim to address problems like bugs or delays through their engineering performance management. Identifying productivity issues (56%) and communication and collaboration issues (55%) were also common goals.
To determine an employee’s performance, respondents measure skills in documentation utilization (40%), adherence to their organization’s software development methodology (36%) and code stability (36%). Few (10%) measure management and leadership skills.
Question: What’s one thing you wish everyone knew about performance management on software engineering teams?
Our company also measures personal behaviors’ alignment and support of certain desired behaviors defined company wide in the assessment of staff performance.
Measurement needs to be consistent and ongoing, across the entire team.
Engineering leaders set clear goals and provide ongoing training to improve employee performance
Question: What advice would you give to other leaders in regard to evaluating engineering team performance?
Question: What’s one thing you wish everyone knew about performance management on software engineering teams?
Be clear in communicating expectations and provide employees the necessary tools, environment, and team collaboration to be successful. Do regular reviews with individual employees as well as individual groups for any given projects. Ensure that employees’ feedback deserves the appropriate response.
The [performance management] process must be rolled out with clear explanations on the purpose and function.
Nearly half are satisfied with their current employee management process, and better alignment with business objective is a key benefit
40% of respondents are moderately satisfied with their documented employee performance management process, while 6% are very satisfied. 26% are moderately dissatisfied, and 4% are very dissatisfied.
Among those who were very or moderately dissatisfied with their performance management process (n = 91), 45% said a lack of leadership support acted as a barrier to effective performance management. Changing company KPIs (43%), employee resistance (42%) and high turnover (41%) also present challenges.
56% of all respondents said that their employee performance management system has improved alignment between engineering and business objectives. Higher-quality code (40%) and clearer expectations for employees (40%) were also prominent benefits.
Question: What advice would you give to other leaders in regard to evaluating engineering team performance?
Question: What’s one thing you wish everyone knew about performance management on software engineering teams?
Evaluating performance is not criticizing a team or individuals, it means benchmarking objectives achieved against set defined goals, deliverables and KPIs.
The best developers are not necessarily the highest producers of lines of code or the developers that know the most languages, but are the ones that ask questions beyond [what] is written down as a set of requirements.
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