Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Microsoft and Yahoo Doomed By Forced Firing By Ranking

Microsoft and Yahoo Doomed By Forced Firing By Ranking



  • See also: More stories · Top stories
  • Microsoft does away with stack ranking | ZDNet

    Microsoft does away with stack ranking
    www.zdnet.com/microsoft-does-away-with-stack-ranking-7000023103
    Nov 12, 2013 · Stack ranking, an employee-evaluation process that has been roundly criticized by many current and former Microsoft employees, is …
  • Microsoft kills Ballmer’s morale-wrecking employee ranking ...

    Microsoft kills Ballmer’s morale-wrecking employee ranking system
    news.yahoo.com/microsoft...employee-ranking-system...
    Here’s how you know the Steve Ballmer era is truly ending at Microsoft: The company has finally killed off stack ranking. ZDNet reports that Microsoft …
  • Why Microsoft Dumped "Stack-Ranking" - Digits - WSJ

    Why Microsoft Dumped ‘Stack Ranking’
    blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/11/12/why-microsoft-dumped-stack-ranking
    Nov 12, 2013 · The sometimes loathed employee-review system has been a fixture of Microsoft for years. Lately, critics said the system — under which 


  • www.businessweek.com/.../yahoos-latest-hr...ranking-workers-on-a-curve
    Nov 12, 2013 · If Marissa Mayer is as good at identifying winning startups as she is at embracing contentious human resources practices, Yahoo! is going to be just fine.
    If Marissa Mayer is as good at identifying winning startups as she is at embracing contentious human resources practices, Yahoo! (YHOO) is going to be just fine. Several months after the great work-at-home kerfuffle of 2013, Yahoo employees were up in arms about a new policy that forces managers to rank employees on a bell curve, then fire those at the low end. According to AllThingsD, Marissa Mayer reportedly told Yahoo workers that the rankings weren’t mandatory, but many people disagree... Yahoo has waded into the “third rail of human resource management.” Forcing managers to rank their employees along a bell curve was popularized in the 1980s (thanks, Jack Welch), but lately it has fallen out of favor. 
    Just over 5 percent of high-performing companies used a forced ranking system in 2011, down from almost 20 percent two years earlier. ..research suggests that employee performance doesn’t follow a bell curve at all. Instead, most people are slightly worse than average (PDF), with a few superstars

  • http://valleywag.gawker.com/yahoo-is-forcing-employees-to-rank-each-other-and-they-1462900871/@maxread

    Yahoo! has recently implemented an archaic bell curve ranking system, compelling employees to artificially spread colleagues over a range of bad to good—even if reality doesn't actually reflect itself on a curve. That's the thing about bell curves: they look so great on paper, but not so much when you're looking around the room and thinking of who might get fired over it. Maybe it's you! And indeed, heads are rolling from the artificial curvature:
    According to a multitude of top-ranking posts on an anonymous internal message board used by Yahoo to vent their frustrations to top staff, employees there are becoming increasingly upset by an evaluation system instituted by CEO Marissa Mayer that has apparently resulted in the firings of more than 600 people in recent weeks...the "Quarterly Performance Review" system forces managers to rank some of their staff with designations of "Occasionally Misses" and "Misses," even if it is not the case
    Businessweek also points out that this kind of rationalized review is just bad for business. Of course, it's horrible for morale: AllThingsD says livid employees, who are basically being asked to betray their coworkers in the name of statistical neatness, are taking to an internal message board with their gripes:











    http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-was-destroyed-by-its-stack-review-process-according-to-new-vanity-fair-expose-2012-7
    Microsoft Just Killed The Controversial 'Stack Ranking' Review System That Killed Employee Morale


    Here's one big internal problem with Microsoft, according to Vanity Fair:
    Eichenwald’s conversations reveal that a management system known as “stack ranking”—a program that forces every unit to declare a certain percentage of employees as top performers, good performers, average, and poor—effectively crippled Microsoft’s ability to innovate. “Every current and former Microsoft employee I interviewed—every one—cited stack ranking as the most destructive process inside of Microsoft, something that drove out untold numbers of employees,” Eichenwald writes. “If you were on a team of 10 people, you walked in the first day knowing that, no matter how good everyone was, 2 people were going to get a great review, 7 were going to get mediocre reviews, and 1 was going to get a terrible review,” says a former software developer. “It leads to employees focusing on competing with each other rather than competing with other companies.”


    Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-was-destroyed-by-its-stack-review-process-according-to-new-vanity-fair-expose-2012-7#ixzz2kSxfHZKR


    She implemented the same system at Google, which was just ripped off from Microsoft. (which I think was ripped off from G.E.) 



    THAT'S FASCINATING
    @Sam Biddle


    This ranking system is actually a performance evaluation method that, while no longer perhaps the most popular system, is certainly not "archaic".
    Basically she's trying to cut the fat in a bloated company and keep the superstars. Can't blame her. I will acknowledge it sucks for the employees but major organizational change is never easy. Her communication could be better.





    NICK DENTON
    @GarrisonKeebler


    And the diagnosis of Microsoft's decline usually centers on the system of stack review, which turned individuals in departments against each other.
    But any system of evaluation organized around groups would have its own perverse effects.
    Let's say that the groups were measured against each other and the weakest 1 in 10 disbanded. The marginal work groups would be highly reluctant to cooperate with others, lest they be dragged down. And the better performers in each group would try to leave for a team of their peers, fearful of being dragged down.
    Whatever system is chosen, individuals will game. So the only real question for top management is this: at what more or less granular level do you need cooperation to obtain?Reply1


    Wednesday, October 9, 2013

    Javascript Template Frameworks Angular Knockout Backbone


    1. AngularJS — Superheroic JavaScript MVW Framework

      angularjs.org/
      AngularJS is what HTML would have been, had it been designed for building web-apps. Declarative templates with data-binding, MVW, MVVM, MVC, ...

      Tutorial

      A great way to get introduced to AngularJS is to work through ...

      On step 2

      Now it's time to make the web page dynamic — with ...

      API Reference

      Use the API Reference documentation when you need ...

      A Note on Minification

      A Note on Minification. Since angular infers the controller's ...

      Developer Guide

      Welcome to the angular Developer Guide. If you are here to learn ...

      On step 3

      The most important differences between Steps 2 and 3 are ...
    2. AngularJS - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

      en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AngularJS
      AngularJS is an open-source JavaScript framework, maintained by Google, that assists with running single-page applications. Its goal is to augment ...

      1. Knockout : Home

        knockoutjs.com/
        Simplify dynamic JavaScript UIs with the Model-View-View Model (MVVM) pattern. Download: Production. v2.3.0 - 15kb min+gz · Download: Prerelease.

        Tutorials

        If your code isn't working as the tutorial describes, you can ...

        Downloads

        Installation. Simply reference the JavaScript file using a <script ...

        Documentation

        Introduction. Knockout is a JavaScript library that helps you ...

        Observables

        Observables. Knockout is built around three core features ...

        Live examples

        Hello World example - Simple list - Grid editor example - Paged grid

        External links and tutorials

        External links and tutorials. See these external pages for more ...
      2. KnockoutJS - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

        en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KnockoutJS
        Knockout is a standalone JavaScript implementation of the Model-View-ViewModel pattern with templates. The underlying principles are therefore: a clear ...
      3. 'knockout.js' tag wiki - Stack Overflow

        stackoverflow.com/tags/knockout.js/info
        Knockout is an implementation of the Model-View-View Model (MVVM) UI pattern inJavascript and HTML. Among its more interesting features: Declarative ...
      4. Essential Knockout.js, Part 1 -- Visual Studio Magazine

        visualstudiomagazine.com/articles/2013/07/.../essential-knockout-js.aspx
        Jul 8, 2013 - Learn how Knockout can help you tame the morass of JavaScript and HTML programming and reduce the time spent writing boilerplate code.

    1. Backbone.js

      backbonejs.org/
      Backbone.js (1.0.0). » GitHub Repository; » Annotated Source. Introduction Upgrading Events. – on; – off; – trigger; – once; – listenTo; – stopListening ...
      Annotated Source - ‎Todos - ‎Todos.js - ‎Test Suite
    2. Backbone.js Tutorials

      backbonetutorials.com/
      Backbone Tutorials is a collection of tutorials written by Thomas Davis. Everything is open source and I try my best to keep the tutorials updated. Though I am ...
    3. Learn Backbone.js - Code School

      www.codeschool.com/courses/anatomy-of-backbonejs
      Learn Backbone.js and start building sophisticated and structured web apps. Try out Backbone's JavaScript library with a RESTful JSON interface.
    4. Backbone.js Tips And Patterns | Smashing Coding

      coding.smashingmagazine.com/2013/08/09/backbone-js-tips-patterns/
      Aug 9, 2013 - In this article, we'll explore different design patterns that you can use in your Backbone.js applications, and we'll look at many of the common ...
    5. javascript - What is the purpose of backbone.js? - Stack Overflow

      stackoverflow.com/questions/.../what-is-the-purpose-of-backbone-js
      Mar 24, 2011 - I tried to understand the utility of backbone.js from its site ...Backbone.js is basically an uber-light framework that allows you to structure your ...
    6. Backbone.js - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

      en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backbonejs
      Backbone is a JavaScript library with a RESTful JSON interface and is based on the model–view–presenter (MVP) application design paradigm. Backbone is ...
    1. Breeze.js: Home

      www.breezejs.com/
      Rich data for JavaScript apps is a. Client caching. Cache queried, new, and changed data on the client for a responsive UI. Track changes. Track changes, raise ...

      Introduction

      Features - Query examples - A lap around breeze - Prerequisites

      Todo-Angular

      Todo-Angular Sample. The Todo-Angular sample demonstrates ...

      Tutorial

      Tutorial 1 - Queries - w/Knockout. Step 1 of 6. This tutorial guides ...

      Blogs

      Thursday, September 12, 2013 6:45 PM Berkeley City ...

      Samples

      Breeze Todo - Intro to SPA - NoDB - Edmunds - Hot Towel - DocCode

      APIs

      Welcome to the Breeze API documentation. If this is your ...
    2. Alternative to Breeze.js? - Stack Overflow

      stackoverflow.com/questions/15938866/alternative-to-breeze-js
      Apr 11, 2013 - Is there an alternative to Breezejs that does not require . ... We actually designed Breeze to be independent of .NET, but none of our samples ...