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371 points greggyb | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0.455s | source
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FuriouslyAdrift ◴[] No.41983561[source]
Everyone forgetting about Lisa Brummel and "stack ranking"?

That nearly ruined Microsoft...

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/microsoft-ditches-syst...

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fsckboy ◴[] No.41983931[source]
"grading on a curve" is a good idea, and if athletics wasn't run that way, nobody would watch.

that doesn't mean it's easy to implement, manage, or impossible to game, or that it plays nice wrt human factors, but to attack the core idea as essentially wrong is anti math, science, and rationality.

Microsoft always suffered from rewarding egotists and political animals over people who did actual work.

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lesuorac ◴[] No.41984436[source]
Athletics is an actual competition where the expectation is that "you win".

When you hire 12 baristas are they competing to make the most coffees or is their job to handle customer's orders? If their job isn't to compete with each other then don't stack rank them. Use other metrics like #of incorrect orders or w/e and decide what you think they should've done and if they did more than that give them a bonus. If they do less then maybe you need a new employee.

> Microsoft always suffered from rewarding egotists and political animals over people who did actual work.

That has nothing to do with grading on a curve. You can assign people to the top of a curve based on "egotist" criteria or based on "work". Nothing about a curve or stack ranking requires it to be based on "real work".

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randomdata ◴[] No.41985489[source]
> When you hire 12 baristas are they competing to make the most coffees or is their job to handle customer's orders?

Both? Handling customer orders is how the sport is played, but at the same time they are competing for the most points (money) in that gameplay.

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lesuorac ◴[] No.41986418[source]
So, all your baristas working a graveyard shift are going to be at the bottom of the stack ranking in terms of revenue/time. What do you now do?
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randomdata ◴[] No.41986571[source]
What do you do in athletics? Do you tell the kids (graveyard shift) they aren't allowed to participate in sports anymore because they can't compete with the big leagues (peak hours)?

Probably not. More likely you would look at the different leagues individually. I'm surprised this idea is novel to you.

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lesuorac ◴[] No.41986891[source]
I mean you do tell the kids they can't participate (in that league). There are woman playing ice hockey but none of them have survived an interview (professional try out with an NHL team and so they've all been told no.

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It's novel because it's not how its done.

It's a big part of the stack rank hate is that people just blindly rank everybody and then adjust compensation that way. Taking more granular detail into account just isn't done.

But also because you're hired to do a job. If you do the criteria of the job then you should get a satisfactory rating. Similar to test taking, if you demonstrate knowledge of the material then you should pass. If you got 99/100 questions right and everybody else got 100/100 then you shouldn't get an F despite you being the worse of the group.

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randomdata ◴[] No.41986989[source]
> Taking more granular detail into account just isn't done.

Where'd you dream up that idea? I operate a restaurant, so I at least have first-hand experience in overseeing barista-like workers, and I don't know how you could possibly ignore such details?

I'm sure I'm not perfect at it. I'm certainly not accurately capturing the butterfly flapping its wings in Africa. But you'd never flat-out ignore the blatantly obvious like shift times.

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1. lesuorac ◴[] No.41987458[source]
Perhaps we've gone so deep into the thread that you've forgotten how we got here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41983561

Perhaps with a statement like "But you'd never flat-out ignore the blatantly obvious like shift times." then you understand why people don't like stack ranking because yes people do ignore blatantly obvious things.

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2. randomdata ◴[] No.41987541[source]
Not forgotten, but not particularly relevant. The context we followed only inherited the athletics analogy and how it parallels with baristas.

Sometimes it is necessary to ignore the blatantly obvious. You can't meaningfully alter the ranking of a sports team because their star player was out with a broken leg. You have to accept the circumstances for what they are.

But I'm not sure that translates to something like shift times which are fundamental to the game.