Sixth Stop - IT Organizations with Agile Performance Management

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Traditional performance management has proven to be insufficient to assess an employee's contribution. Its focus is to set up a series of processes to measure employee performance throughout the year. These processes lead to an unforeseen effect of managers focusing on employee weaknesses. (Pawar, 2016)

Therefore, a more dynamic performance management practice was needed which could be developed and adapted to the changing environment. Thus, Agile Performance Management was introduced. Its three main aspects are regular feedback, communication, and coaching. These aspects bridge the gap between goal setting and performance evaluation. (Maier, 2017)

Nowadays most of the IT organizations follow this agile performance management which allows for the real-time feedback conversations that employees want to move to the forefront. Because “Waiting once a year (for a performance review) doesn’t work. It’s time to move to real-time pay for performance, with frequent touch points between the manager and employee.” (Catalano, n.d.)

Four key elements of Agile Performance Management which IT organizations follow
  • Regular performance conversations:  Even though most organizations have the process of requiring managers and employees to meet once or twice a year, most of the IT organizations' employees and managers meet more often with agile performance management, because the timeliness of performance feedback helps the employee performs at a higher level.

  • Peer-based feedback: IT organizations have a team-based workforce and with agile, in addition to increased manager feedback, employees tend to get feedback from their own colleagues. This can be just as valuable – if not more so – than manager feedback. This can improve their working relationship with their peers positively.

  • Focus on current and future projects: More frequent performance calls mean that less time is spent on recovering from old behavior. Employees and managers already know what happened before. The conversation is spent on future performance, talking about how to achieve goals. 

  • Training at every level: Each employee will be able to deliver performance-related feedback. This helps employees to take ownership of their career development. (Lauby, 2016)



Supporting regular performance conversations, IT organizations’ trend is maintaining a Personal Development Plan (PDA) for every employee. It assigns two three goals per employee and the manager is evaluating the process and giving feedback on the performance periodically. This really helps in employees career development.

By setting common goals and establishing continuous feedback, it makes better communication and adaptation of what each employee works with and how they contribute to the company's goals and purpose. Structure around this adds responsibility for the management to get frequent calls that provide better communication.

So, what are you doing to become more agile and drive higher performing teams and engaged employees in your organization?  Is it even a priority?

References

Catalano, R., n.d. HR GAZETTE. [Online]
Available at: https://hr-gazette.com/what-is-agile-performance-management
[Accessed 2 June 2019].

Lauby, S., 2016. HR bartender. [Online]
Available at: https://www.hrbartender.com/2016/employee-engagement/performance-management-2017/
[Accessed 2 June 2019].

Maier, S., 2017. glassdoor. [Online]
Available at: https://www.glassdoor.com/employers/blog/how-to-manage-performance-in-agile-teams/
[Accessed 2 June 2019].

Pawar, Y., 2016. Upraise. [Online]
Available at: https://upraise.io/blog/agile-project-management-certifications/
[Accessed 2 June 2019].









Comments

  1. Razi JalaldeenJune 2, 2019 at 9:44 PM

    Please check the citation style

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Apsara WickramarathneJune 2, 2019 at 11:26 PM

      Thank you for the feedback Dr.Razi. I did the necessary changes in citations

      Delete
  2. Sanjeewani AdikariJune 8, 2019 at 10:40 AM

    You have pointed out an area which is not well known to many. As you said continuous feedback makes better communication and adaptation of what each employee works with and how they contribute to the company's goals and purpose.

    ReplyDelete

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