I’m deeply committed

re: I’m deeply committed

animageofmine — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 23:47:39 GMT

First of all, the idea of commitments is hardly useful, especially when you work in agile work environment. You don't know what you would be working on in next 6 months because there is a monthly release cycle. So, obviously you have to enter something generic or you have to update every month, which is even worse.

I have worked with more than 10 leads and almost all of them have their own way of defining commitments. Which one is the truth table ? A plain simple answer is that as long as your manager knows what you are doing and how is your performance, commitments is just a formality because it is a part of HR. Following book rules by first setting up commitments and reviewing them by putting a check point on each at the end of the year is a foolish decision.

Atleast that's what my opinion is. I find it hard to understand why does it matter so much.

re: I’m deeply committed

Mohamed Elsherif — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 06:17:05 GMT

I don't think the yearly commitments thing suits all businesses, for example I work in OSD, where we release every 6 month, and now working on 3 month release cycles, which means commitments are very hard to tie with release goals because I can't foresee and neither do my manager the goals for the next releases and how different the situation now from the next 6 months.

I think commitments system should be a living document that can be changed by both the employee and approved by his manager throughout the year, otherwise it becomes something we have to do and waste some time.

That's my opinion, and I expect to see some changes for this process in the future

re: I’m deeply committed

JPitts — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 16:23:35 GMT

Hey Eric, after reading this post, I was thinking it might help if you posted a number of sample commitments and did a bit of a disection on them (what specfically are BOGUS about them? what accountabilities are a good balance between being measurable and unique but not too self centric? what makes you say 'awesome'?) Thanks!

re: I’m deeply committed

publicus — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 16:10:12 GMT

To add, the whole commitment system at Microsoft produces politics and some of the nastiest people I've ever seen in a corporate environment, people actually undermine each other on the same team due to the curve and commitments!

re: I’m deeply committed

publicus — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 16:06:39 GMT

The whole idea behind commitment is flawed. They should be eradicated and focus on profitability and rewards instead.

re: I’m deeply committed

Code Monkey — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:34:24 GMT

Tools don't kill people busines processes kill people...

I agree that we can simplify the entire process and focus on working more and being inside the review process less, don't forget that the tools we use are based on enabling the business process. IT doesn't write requirements we simply try to enable them based on the current "best" technology choice. (and then we don't get funding to keep investing... that could be another article)

re: I’m deeply committed

Disillusioned engineer — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 22:08:42 GMT

"Are you working on a critical, difficult, high-risk, impactful, and influential project that aligns with the team’s business direction and customer focus?"

Some people have to work on unsexy, uncritical, unimpactful and uninfluential stuff, because without 90% of unsexy stuff the rest 10% don't make up for a shipped product. And what should you write for those?

Perf review process at MSFT is BOGUS, why do you wonder that it results in BOGUS committments?

re: I’m deeply committed

FutureTurnip — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 18:50:21 GMT

So sorry to hear that you're a victim of "performance reviews" and the worst flavor of reviews, "calibrated performance reviews".

Deming listed this as one of the deadly sins. Your article points out many reasons for why (e.g., "The goal is to get real work done, not to spend weeks writing and editing commitments.")

Save your HR department and Microsoft millions upon millions in wasted effort. Improve morale, productivity, and qualit by just saying "NO".