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Once SubStack introduced sections I no longer needed a separate blog for my thoughts about incentives. I merged the 1000 non-overlapping subscribers, imported the 28 posts, & effectively shut down the other stack. However, since many of y’all are new here, I reckon most of you haven’t seen most of those posts.
Incentives, particularly blindness to the incentives we create, is a hot topic these days, what with the developer productivity hocus-pocus. Here, then, is a summary of my work on incentives to date.
Foundations
From The Geek Incentives Manifesto:
People create incentive systems all the time, often without realizing it.
They do so mostly by copying, without thinking about the tradeoffs they are navigating.
Incentive system decisions made badly have wide-ranging consequences, especially for people with less power.
It's not rocket surgery to do a better job of creating incentive systems. Improvement starts with awareness & caring.
It's in everyone's best interest to improve.
The Pie Problem The ultimate perverse incentive (and props to whoever decided to use the word “perverse”)—when leaders make it easier for someone to expand their slice, even at the cost of shrinking the pie.
Incentives >>> Money I have to say this over & over, so I will. Incentives aren’t (just) money. Money is an incentive but so is status, recognition, autonomy, curiosity, & stories.
Geek Incentives Manifesto Expanded I should know better than to write something titled “manifesto”, but here we are.
Authority, Responsibility, Blame, Accountability Frequently abused words, but there are valuable concepts there.
Accountability in Software Development Folks advocating for measuring “developer productivity” sometimes claim I’m anti-accountability. I 💯 pro accounting for things that matter. Given the perversity of incentives, I’m also 💯 anti accounting for things that don’t matter, because that accounting will bite you on the butt.
Incentives Change Marginal Behavior What can incentives do? They aren’t a steering wheel. Incentives only change behavior at the margins.
It's Not Programming Another take on the same topic. Programmers who create incentives systems tend to use the metaphor of incentives as programs for people. Doesn’t work out.
Mysteries of Geek Incentives I love puzzle, especially big, juicy, complicated, decades-long puzzles. Here are some.
Organization
Sign-up Versus Assignment Trusting people to sign up for tasks creates powerful positive incentives.
Team Matching Creates Incentives I wouldn’t have guessed that a subtle change like when a new employee is matched to a team would powerfully change incentives for managers. I would have been wrong.
Collaboration Incentives Re-organizations re-align incentives.
Fixed Equity Grants Become Toxic Money is the most easily abused incentive & equity is no different.
Follow the Incentives, Waze Edition The Waze founder was amazed that people acted completely differently given completely different incentives.
Performance Review
Performance Review Incentives Performance review as commonly practiced profoundly disaligns individuals from business & personal goals.
Perverse Incentives of Retrospective Promotions Companies don’t want to promote people too soon, but policies to prevent that work against individuals in odd ways.
No-compensation Ratings As a band-aid on performance reviews I propose to completely decouple them from financial consequences. Money is such a slippery knife.
Ratings as Incentives Another band-aid. How to limit the harm of ratings systems.
Patterns of Performance Review & Compensation A never-finished outline of topics I want to address around performance review.
Incentives of a Paid Newsletter
Obligation: Incentive to Write Observations on writing with a paid newsletter.
Sooner Versus Longer Writing here with paying subscribers is an experiment in incentives for me. Some of what I learn surprises me.
Earning to Write, not Writing to Earn Why I began writing Tidy First? as a paid newsletter & how it was going.
Conclusion
I’ve made more progress that I realized. (I’ll soon tell the story of how I got started studying incentives.) There are definitely several books in here, but I’m not sure I’m going to write them. What are my incentives?
Incentives: The Hits
I recall back in the day being in a startup where one of the founders felt particularly clever at creating sales incentives. (Usually over the objections of the VP of Sales.)
The founder *always* got it wrong. It was always amusing to see how quickly sales people would alter their behavior in unpredicted ways to maximize their income.