[Sigia-l] How to evaluate your team of interaction designers?

[Lyle Kantrovich]

On 12/8/05, Listera <listera at rcn.com> wrote:
> prady:
>
> > Performance review is also about feedback
>
> Which brings up an interesting question: should feedback be given at any
> time when it's most fresh/relevant/needed or in a formalized/designated
> fashion every 6/12 months because, well, that's just best practice?

Good point (other than saying doing it wrong is "best practice"). 
Really, a review's outcome should never be a shock to anyone
involved...if it is, it's a failure of both management and employee. 
People should never go too long without knowing how they are doing
directionally and from an overall performance standpoint.  Any good
current management or HR book would agree.  Bill Jensen's book "The
Simplicity Survival Handbook" does a good job of outlining how
employees (also) need to make sure they are getting regular feedback.

Martin's list seems heavy on the UX skills side, and light on the
general behavioral side (communication, teamwork, problem solving,
etc.).  E.g. creativity, communication and problem solving happen
outside of projects and designs as well.

Another point is that it's not really fair to evaluate employees
against criteria that haven't been communicated ahead of time.   If
you are just determining now what is expected of them, then they
should understand those expectations BEFORE they are expected to live
up to them.

It's also worth noting that a performance review is different from a
skill/career development planning session.  Details like what methods
an employee uses or has experience with could be in a skill dev plan. 
In UX, or IA, I feel that you can't expect all team members to be good
at all methods, so part of managing a team is understanding what skill
areas people excel at and not forcing them into areas they aren't good
at.  For example, some people might be great writers, but not good
group or test session facilitators...sometimes this means you actually
expect more from them as a writer, and less from them as a facilitator
(as the job or and team roles allow).

Hope that helps.  I think this is a really interesting topic...and a
new one for this group.

Lyle

--------------------------
Lyle Kantrovich
Blog: Croc O' Lyle
http://crocolyle.blogspot.com