Re:How we use tennis rankings for fixing bugs
by Etheryte on Wednesday October 07, 2020 @01:43PM
(#24710712)
> We decided the process had two major goals: 1. Complete as much work as possible within the allocated time. 2. Be reliable and complete things respecting our own deadlines.
The choice of 1. as not just a goal, but the number one goal, is a big red flag for me. "As much work as possible" means everyone is incentivized to pick the lowest hanging fruit and simply bang out as many of them as possible. This means any difficult issues simply get postponed as long as they possibly can be, and when someone does pick them up, they won't be happy because their "ranking" will likely suffer. Difficult problems can often be the ones you should address first instead, since they can have larger consequences on the rest of your codebase.
The choice of 1. as not just a goal, but the number one goal, is a big red flag for me. "As much work as possible" means everyone is incentivized to pick the lowest hanging fruit and simply bang out as many of them as possible. This means any difficult issues simply get postponed as long as they possibly can be, and when someone does pick them up, they won't be happy because their "ranking" will likely suffer. Difficult problems can often be the ones you should address first instead, since they can have larger consequences on the rest of your codebase.