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A new approach to performance appraisal for software engineers / by William E. Strangeway.

by Strangeway, William E.

Software engineering

Employees -- Rating of

122 leaves : ill. ; 29 cm.

Introduction -- The purpose of the performance appraisal process -- Characteristics of performance appraisal systems -- The software engineer attitude survey -- A new approach to appraising software engineers -- Conclusions and recommendations -- Appendix A. Simple survey form -- Appendix B. Raw survey results.

Development of sophisticated software applications for today’s business environment is being hampered by low productivity and inadequate quality control. This situation has resulted in a "software crisis". As Conte, et al., explain in Software Engineering Metrics and Models: The full realization of the potential of computers...depends on our ability to produce reliable software at a reasonable cost. ....there is great national concern that software technology lags so far behind hardware technology that this potential will never be fully realized, and that we as a country could lose our technological lead in computers to other nations.

Productivity improvement in the software engineering profession has been approached from either a technical or behavioral perspective. Technical approaches utilize new software development methodologies, development tools, metrics, etc., in their attempt to improve productivity. By contrast, behavioral (sociological) approaches consider such areas as the work environment, ergonomics, human relations and organizational behavior. This thesis focuses on the software productivity problem from a behavioral perspective. In particular, the employee performance appraisal aspect of organizational behavior and its impacts upon productivity are explored and a new approach to the appraisal of software engineers is developed.

The premise of the proposed approach to the performance appraisal of software engineers concurs with a citation of Gerald Weinberg in The Decline and Fall of the American Programmer: Many programmers -- probably most programmers -- work in environments in which they receive essentially no real feedback embodying the consequences of what they do. Lacking this feedback, they lack the motivation to attempt changes, and they also lack the information needed to make the correct changes.

Chapter one further explains the importance of addressing the software productivity issue and the rationale for approaching it from a behavioral perspective. Chapter two gives a historical background on performance appraisal and the corporate rational for its implementation. Chapter three examines the many aspects, problems, and pitfalls involved in implementing performance appraisal. In addition, the roles of the manager and emerging concepts on the subject are discussed.

To gain further insight into the performance appraisal issues that affect software engineers, an opinion survey was administered. Chapter four discusses the insights gathered from the survey and how the information was considered in the recommendationed approach to performance appraisal.

In chapter five a new approach to the performance appraisal of software engineers is developed. The new approach involves revising the performance appraisal practices applied to software engineers and implementing them within the framework of the classic software development model. The new approach intends to improve the productivity of software engineers by using performance appraisal as a medium to create a climate of increased communication between managers and software engineers.

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