Background of Evaluations of Professionals
Since the industrial revolution, all levels of management have used performance evaluations and performance reviews as standards for determining the productiveness of employees. This has been true for every type of job, from manual labor positions to top level managers. While the traditional approach to performance reviews may be appropriate for many positions, it is ineffective for many other positions such as computer programmers and software engineers.
As we move farther and farther into the Information Age, we can be sure that the evaluation of computer professionals is one of the keys to a company's success.
For simplicity, within this report, programmers, analysts, software engineers, and other titles of software development people will be referred to as computer professionals.
Discussion Topics
This report discusses in great detail all aspects of the evaluation of computer professionals. This discussion will include:
current evaluation techniques
problems with these techniques
new evaluation techniques
how these new techniques can be applied for better evaluations
Current Evaluation Techniques
Traditional Performance Evaluations
Since its introduction, there has always been a large amount of controversy over the effectiveness and usefulness of the performance evaluation.
Most managers will list the task of writing performance evaluations near the top of the list of things they least like to do, yet good managers recognize the importance of performance evaluations to their employees. Managers also realize that written reviews can supply documentation if a fired employee brings a wrongful-dismissal suit.1
In theory, employee performance evaluations are supposed to be an enlightening experience both for the manger and the employee. In practice however, these annual rituals are usually less than pleasant. A manager is forced to gather the little information that he or she has about the performance of an employee and put it into a meaningful report.