Doug Hughes had an interesting response to this question that I thought would be nice to share (with his permission):
I kind of approach it as analogous to networking. latency and throughput in the right combination. Users want the fast/simple stuff to be done fast, and if it is, they give you a lot of leeway on the slow/hard stuff. Getting the right balance is tricky, but manageable with guidance. Also, having persistant throughput on projects is useful to measure. If you can see consistent progress on something from a week to week perspective, that's a good sign. One project might be stalled on something, or interrupted for higher priority work, but overall there should be noticeable throughput over time and tasks. Every organization also has some other higher level goals that management sets for everybody, like, meeting attendance (showing up promptly, being prepared), whether people are part of the hiring process or not and how much they participate, filing expenses on time, etc. It's easy to notice a person who has a pattern of being late and unprepared, or inability to finish projects, or missing details, or whatever Many places have formal checklists. They predict a list of major projects (those that are expected to last for months or years), and set those as specific performance criteria at the review. Others collect the list of projects accomplished during the year and the relative success or current state (is the documentation done?) Some also have peer review as a formal component.. Doug
_______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lopsa.org http://lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators http://lopsa.org/
