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Measuring and Managing Performance in Organizations
- By Robert Austin
- Published Jul 12, 2013 by Addison-Wesley Professional. Part of the Dorset House eBooks series.
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Description
- Copyright 2014
- Edition: 1st
- eBook
- ISBN-10: 0-13-349207-9
- ISBN-13: 978-0-13-349207-1
This is the digital version of the printed book (Copyright © 1996).
Based on an award-winning doctoral thesis at Carnegie Mellon University, Measuring and Managing Performance in Organizations presents a captivating analysis of the perils of performance measurement systems. In the book’s foreword, Peopleware authors Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister rave, “We believe this is a book that needs to be on the desk of just about anyone who manages anything.”
Because people often react with unanticipated sophistication when they are being measured, measurement-based management systems can become dysfunctional, interfering with achievement of intended results. Fortunately, as the author shows, measurement dysfunction follows a pattern that can be identified and avoided.
The author’s findings are bolstered by interviews with eight recognized experts in the use of measurement to manage computer software development: David N. Card, of Software Productivity Solutions; Tom DeMarco, of the Atlantic Systems Guild; Capers Jones, of Software Productivity Research; John Musa, of AT&T Bell Laboratories; Daniel J. Paulish, of Siemens Corporate Research; Lawrence H. Putnam, of Quantitative Software Management; E. O. Tilford, Sr., of Fissure; plus the anonymous Expert X.
A practical model for analyzing measurement projects solidifies the text–don’t start without it!
Sample Content
Online Sample Chapter
The Intended Uses of Performance Measurement in Organizations
Sample Pages
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Table of Contents
Foreword xii
Preface xv
Chapter 1: An Introduction to Measurement Issues 1
Chapter 2: A Closer Look at Measurement Dysfunction 10
Chapter 3: The Intended Uses of Measurement in Organizations 21
Motivational Measurement 22
Informational Measurement 25
Segregating Information By Intended Use 29
Chapter 4: How Economists Approach the Measurement Problem 32
Balancing Cost and Benefit Associated with Agent Effort 34
The Effort Mix Problem 37
Chapter 5: Constructing a Model of Measurement and Dysfunction 42
The Importance of the Customer 44
What the Customer Wants 45
Extra Effort versus Incentive Distortion 47
Chapter 6: Bringing Internal Motivation into the Model 52
The Observability of Effort 54
Model Assumptions 55
Chapter 7: Three Ways of Supervising the Agent 58
No Supervision 58
Full Supervision 60
Partial Supervision 62
Chapter 8: Designing Incentive Systems 66
A Better Model of Organizational Incentives 68
Chapter 9: A Summary of the Model 74
The Model Setup 74
Three Ways of Supervising the Agent 76
The Principal's Solution 79
Chapter 10: Measurement and Internal Motivation 81
Internal versus External Motivation 81
Delegatory Management 87
The Conflict Between Measurement-Based and Delegatory Management 89
Chapter 11: Comparing Delegatory and Measurement-Based Management 92
Chapter 12: When Neither Management Method Seems Recommended 102
Measurement versus Delegation in Real Organizations 108
Chapter 13: Purely Informational Measurement 114
Chapter 14: How Dysfunction Arises and Persists 124
The Earnest Explanation of Dysfunction: A Systematic Error by the Principal 126
Misguided Reflexes, Folly, and the Mystique of Quantity 127
The Difficulty of the Principal's Inference Problem 133
Chapter 15: The Cynical Explanation of Dysfunction 137
Delegation Costs, Inevitable Dysfunction, and Non-Attributional Cultures 140
Chapter 16: Interviews with Software Measurement Experts 147
Interview Results 149
Chapter 17: The Measurement Disease 159
The Malcolm Baldrige Quality Award 159
ISO 9000 Certification 160
Software Capability Evaluation 162
Similarities Between Methods 163
The Nature of the Measurement Problem 167
Chapter 18: Societal Implications and Extensions 171
Probabilistic Measurement 172
Firm Integration Theories 174
The Difficulty of Explaining Cooperation Under Assumptions of Pure Self-Interest 178
Chapter 19: A Difficult But Solvable Problem 180
Appendix: Interview Methods and Questions 183
Glossary 191
Bibliography 195
Author Index 209
Subject Index 211