Employee assessment in Scrum teams

Regular individual assessments vs. Sprint Retrospections

I think among Sprint Retrospections, where whole team reviews their work as well as pros and cons of practices and approaches, every mature Scrum process requires regular indidual team member assessments.

First of all it allows provide combined and overall feedback which includes from colleagues, product owner or customer, scrum master or manager. Secondly it outlines weaknesses which team member might not even pay enough attention. Finally it gives a chance to be heard.

As a result individual assessments complement sprint retrospections and improve overall team’s characteristics simultaniously.
 

Feelings and facts during assessments

In order to make individual assessment objective two things come to the scine: personal feedback and figures. While personal feedback operates with feelings, feagures operates with facts, naturally complementing each other.

Most important criterias of assessment are performance, team player, technology expertiese, target role, project knowledge. In additional some other criterias may be highlighted during personal talk, however those 5 are key stones.

I usually use simple anonimous form to take feedback from colleagues to save their time time and make life easier. Below example of the form I used in my teams.

Performace

• Doesn’t complete taken tasks at all, blocks team. Inaccurate.
• Regulartly fails tasks or his own estimates, completed tasks need rework, sometimes blocks team. Regular inaccuracy.
• Tries to perform taken tasks in time, sometimes there are fails with estimates and rework due to lack of knowledge or inaccuracy.
• Usually performs taken tasks in time, does estimates accuratelly and follows it. however rare occasionall delays possible.
• Performs all taken tasks in time and without rework, does estimates accuratelly and follows it.

Team player

• Conflics with others. Doesn’t help other team members at all. Doesn’t share knowledge. Most of the time fails meetings and cause information blockers for the team.
• Rarely help other team members. Rarely share knowledge. Regularly fails meetings and cause information blockers for the team.
• Sometimes help other team members. Usually share knowledge. Sometimes fails meetings and cause information blockers for the team.
• Help other team members. Share knowledge willingly. Initiative. Has positive attitude. In time on all team meetings.
• Help other team members. Share knowledge willingly. Initiative. Has positive attitude. In time on all team meetings. Able to organize and motivate other team members

Technology Expertiese

• Knowledge of core technologies and development process
• General knowledge of application (s), detailed understanding of some functional areas and ability to make unsupervised changes
• Full knowledge of application (s) architecture, including internal and external dataflows. General understand of technology landscape within business area / IT stream.
• Full understanding of application architecture,  relevant corporate standards for application design, ability to make / justify architectural decision.
• Full knowledge of application portfolio within IT stream, understanding of long term application strategy and short term plans, ability to drive innovation. Ability to manage development and support services for any application within IT stream

Target Role

• Has enough skills to perform work on project under tight supervision (Novice/Junior)
• Able to independently perform work on some areas under supervision of the Team Lead (Middle)
• Able to perform work independently, interacting with UBS IT counterparties (Senior Level)
• Able to manage application development in time, and to supervise a group of developers (Team Lead)
• Able to elicit business requirements/propose solutions to Product Owner. Can supervise several projects (Project Manager / Delivery Manager)

Business Doman Knowledge

• General awareness of Business.
• Basic understanding of products and services covered by the system. Detailed understanding of application use-case(s).
• Detailed understanding  of products and services covered by the system, ability to work jointly with technical staff within UBS on analysis of business requirements and development of functional specifications.
• General understanding of products and services within business area, ability to work independantly with technical and non-technical staff to gather business requirements and produce funtional specifications for exiting functional module(s).
• Full understanding of value generation process within business area, detailed understanding of products and services. Ability to communicate directly with non-techical staff, gather high level business requirements and produce functional specifications for new functional module(s).

Assessment procedure

Feedback collected, feagures prepared, what’s next? Next step is a private talk of manager with employee based on information obtained during preparation step.

Similarly to Sprint Retrospection this discussion has two main parts. First is appriasal of the work done, review of the input and weaknesses. Second is creation of the personal development plan for the next period. Of course each manager has his own set of practices he/she uses to handle such talks but most of them more or less follow this schema.

As soon as manager and employee has clear conclusions and feasible action items, as well as manager got employee’s committment, talk is over. That is perfect time to persist result somewhere to get back to them during next individual assessment.