Todd Little will demonstrate such a program that was rolled out successfully with strong support across the enterprise−from the individual colleagues to people leaders, and even including HR. He will demonstrate the principles and the specific implementation of the system which you can tailor to your organization’s values and constraints. While the system was originally designed to cover developer roles, the approach has been broadened and utilized to cover many knowledge worker roles and then expanded to cover leadership roles. Learning Outcomes: - How to go about designing a performance management system that honors agile values and actually provides value to both the organization and the individuals. - An approach for developers and other knowledge worker roles - An approach for leadership roles Presenter: Todd Little is the CEO at Lean Kanban, Inc., a company that operates a professional services business, an education program and a global conference series.

1. Performance Reviews That Don’t Suck
Todd Little, CEO Lean Kanban

2. About Todd and Andrew Tuttle
CEO at Lean Kanban
Executive roles as VP
Product Development,
Director of Software &
Technology
@toddelittle
• Executive Director of
Product Development
• 10 years of people
management
experience

3. Why do Performance Reviews?

4. Why do Performance Reviews?
Set Goals
Measure Performance
Establish Rewards
Career Development

5. Traditional Approach to Objectives

6. Problems with SMART Objectives
Increase code production rate to __(#) lines of code
per __(unit of time) by __(date)

7. SMART Objectives and unintended
consequences

8. SOS - SMART Objectives Suck
• Do not comprehend
uncertainty
• Unintended consequences
• Myopic approach to career
coaching
• Behind every objective is a
subjective

9. SOS - SMART Objectives Suck
• Do not comprehend
uncertainty
• Unintended consequences
• Myopic approach to career
coaching
• Behind every objective is
a subjective

10. Abolish management by objective and annual
performance reviews
W. Edwards Deming

11. Do performance reviews have to suck?

12. Guiding principles

13. Values are what we value

14. Discovering the Core Responsibilities
Delivery
Business
Engagement
Teamwork
Quality
Initiative and
Innovation
Deliver technical solutions
Partner with customer stakeholders
Collaborate with teammates
Build quality into software from the ground up
Take initiative and innovate

15. Value is what we value
Impact is the primary
measure of career growth
Impact = Behaviors +
Skills + Opportunity
Coach
Foster
Create
Evolve
Develop
Seize

16. With a promotion comes higher
expectations

17. Delivery against Expectations
Core Areas
Associate Senior Sr. Principal

18. We value career development over
performance ratings

19. What we did

20. Discovering the Core Responsibilities
Delivery
Business
Engagement
Teamwork
Quality
Initiative and
Innovation
Deliver technical solutions
Partner with customer stakeholders
Collaborate with teammates
Build quality into software from the ground up
Take initiative and innovate

21. Build quality into software from the ground up
• Key contributions to consider:
• Clean code
• Automated unit & integration tests
• Peer review
• Reduction of technical debt

22. Expectations by level
Associate Software Engineer With direction
Software Engineer With support
Senior Software Engineer Self-directed
Principal Software Engineer Leader
Senior Principal Software Engineer Mentor
Executive Software Engineer Visionary

23. Delivery Customer
Focus
Teamwork Quality Initiative &
Innovation
Leader /
Extraordinary
Contributor
Behaviors
Leader /
Extraordinary
Contributor
Self-Directed
With Support
With Direction
Recognized
Corporate
Resource
Impact
Deep and/or
Broad
Feature
User Story
Simple User Story
Core Responsibility Framework

24. Partnering with HR
Abby Britt,
Sr HR Manager

25. 24 hours
1-4 weeks
Release Backlog Backlog tasks Potentially Shippable
Product Increment
Iteration Backlog
Review
Organizational
Strategic Intent
Establish Projects and
Initiatives aligned
with Intent
Measure Results of
individuals relative
to job expectations

26. Pilot program rollout

27. Delivery Customer
Focus
Teamwork Quality Initiative &
Innovation
Leader /
Extraordinary
Contributor
Behaviors
Leader /
Extraordinary
Contributor
Self-Directed
With Support
With Direction
Recognized
Corporate
Resource
Impact
Deep and/or
Broad
Feature
User Story
Simple User Story
Performance Evaluation Model

28. Delivery Customer
Focus
Teamwork Quality Initiative &
Innovation
Leader /
Extraordinary
Contributor
Behaviors
Leader /
Extraordinary
Contributor
Self-Directed
With Support
With Direction
Recognized
Corporate
Resource
Impact
Deep and/or
Broad
Feature
User Story
Simple User Story
John the Journeyman

29. Tail of Two Developers
Ed Oz

30. Oz – I get no respect
For some reason people pay
no attention to the man
behind the fire wall.
I’m gonna become a full stack
developer and show what I can
do

31. Oz’s Performance Review
I exceeded expectations!!!!
When I started the code was toxic. It was spewing crap all the time.
I turned that manure producer into a functioning control center

32. Later – What’s wrong with this picture?
Ed Oz

33. Delivery Customer
Focus
Teamwork Quality Initiative &
Innovation
Leader /
Extraordinary
Contributor
Behaviors
Leader /
Extraordinary
Contributor
Self-Directed
With Support
With Direction
Recognized
Corporate
Resource
Impact
Deep and/or
Broad
Feature
User Story
Simple User Story
Oz the Whole Stack Developer

34. Other Archetypes

35. Delivery Customer
Focus
Teamwork Quality Initiative &
Innovation
Leader /
Extraordinary
Contributor
Behaviors
Leader /
Extraordinary
Contributor
Self-Directed
With Support
With Direction
Recognized
Corporate
Resource
Impact
Deep and/or
Broad
Feature
User Story
Simple User Story
Quincy the Quality Evangelist

36. Delivery Customer
Focus
Teamwork Quality Initiative &
Innovation
Leader /
Extraordinary
Contributor
Behaviors
Leader /
Extraordinary
Contributor
Self-Directed
With Support
With Direction
Recognized
Corporate
Resource
Impact
Deep and/or
Broad
Feature
User Story
Simple User Story
Heather the Hero

37. Delivery Customer
Focus
Teamwork Quality Initiative &
Innovation
Leader /
Extraordinary
Contributor
Behaviors
Leader /
Extraordinary
Contributor
Self-Directed
With Support
With Direction
Recognized
Corporate
Resource
Impact
Deep and/or
Broad
Feature
User Story
Simple User Story
Ivan the Individualist

38. Delivery Customer
Focus
Teamwork Quality Initiative &
Innovation
Leader /
Extraordinary
Contributor
Behaviors
Leader /
Extraordinary
Contributor
Self-Directed
With Support
With Direction
Recognized
Corporate
Resource
Impact
Deep and/or
Broad
Feature
User Story
Simple User Story
Tessy the Team Angel

39. Delivery Customer
Focus
Teamwork Quality Initiative &
Innovation
Leader /
Extraordinary
Contributor
Behaviors
Leader /
Extraordinary
Contributor
Self-Directed
With Support
With Direction
Recognized
Corporate
Resource
Impact
Deep and/or
Broad
Feature
User Story
Simple User Story
Doug the Domain Expert

40. How do managers like it?

41. Manager Feedback
100%

42. Manager Feedback
85%

43. Manager Feedback
92%

44. How do colleagues like it?

45. Colleague Feedback
73%

46. Colleague Feedback
57%

47. Colleague Feedback
68%

48. Inspecting and adapting

49. Challenges integrating with HR systems
HR rating model emphasizes “performance” over career growth
Coarse-grained HR performance ratings
Redundancies in paperwork
Title inconsistencies across the company

50. Refining the Structure
Behavior Impact
Associate Software Engineer With direction Simple User Story
Software Engineer With support User Story
Senior Software Engineer Self-directed Feature
Principal Software Engineer Leader /
Extraordinary
Contributor
Broad and/or Deep
Impact
Senior Principal Software Engineer Leader /
Extraordinary
Contributor
Recognized Corporate
Resource

51. Beyond software developers

52. Shared Core Responsibilities
Delivery Deliver technical solutions
Business
Engagement
Partner with customer stakeholders
Teamwork Collaborate with teammates
Quality Build quality into software from the ground up
Initiative and
Innovation
Take initiative and innovate relentlessly

53. Quality: Build quality into software from
the ground up to create business value
• Key contributions to consider:
Developer SQA
Clean code Write and execute tests to
detect issues early
Automated unit & integration
tests
Workflow, integration,
exploratory and performance
tests
Peer review Peer review
Reduction of technical debt Be a quality advocate on the
team

54. What about Leaders?

55. People Leader Behaviors and Impacts
Behavior Impact
Manager With Support Team
Sr. Manager Self Directed Team(s)
Director Leader of Leaders Team of Teams
Sr. Director Leadership Mentor Business Area
VP Organization
Visionary
Department

56. People Leader Core Responsibilities
Delivery Lead delivery of quality programs or functions
Teamwork Build high performing teams
Innovation Fuel aligned innovation
Coaching and
Mentoring
Invest in career and leadership development
Collaboration Collaborate across organizational lines

57. Do performance reviews have to suck?

58. Traditional MBO
Set goals cascaded down to individuals
Measure the performance against those goals
Reward based on performance against goals
Hope that the goals were the right ones and that it drives the right
behavior and career advancement

59. Our Approach
Establish the behaviors and skills that are core to building organizational
capacity
Provide ongoing guidance and feedback to each employee to help them
grow
Reward based on promotion scale
Establish and continuously update goals at the team, department and
organizational level

60. Theory X vs. Theory Y

62. Litmus Test
Are you making your team, others on your team, and the organization
better?

63. Contact
Todd Little
 todd@leankanban.com
 toddelittle@gmail.com
 www.toddlittleweb.com
 www.linkedin.com/in/toddelittle/
 @toddelittle
Andrew Tuttle
 andrew.tuttle@ihsmarkit.com
 www.linkedin.com/in/andrewltuttle

64. Questions?

66. 66

67. Your Trusted Agile Software
Co-development Partner
1. Accelerate delivery of your
product/technology roadmap
2. Address technology skills gap in
your inhouse team
3. Save >50% with India based
software development talent
4. Leverage US based
professionals to make it easy
for your inhouse team to
collaborate
67

68. Representative Clients - 14+ Years
…100+ more

69. Upcoming Webinar
The Intrapreneur’s Journey:
Empowering Employees To Drive Growth
Wednesday March 20, 2019
@ 11pm ET | 10am CT | 8am PT
Presenters:
Hugh Molotsi & Jeff Zias
Authors of The Intrapreneur’s Journey:
Empowering Employees to Drive Growth

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