Philipp Hauer's Blog

Engineering Management, Java Ecosystem, Kotlin, Sociology of Software Development

Staff Appraisal

Better Performance Reviews for Developers with a Skill Matrix

Posted on Feb 16, 2022

Better Performance Reviews for Developers with a Skill Matrix

Good performance reviews should be as fair and objective as possible, communicate expectations clearly, and point out concrete areas of improvement. For this, we use a skill matrix as a systematic assessment tool containing skills tailored to the role of a software developer. This post is a hands-on guide to applying a skill matrix in practice.

Team Manager's Toolkit for One-on-Ones

Posted on Dec 7, 2020

Team Manager's Toolkit for One-on-Ones

1-1s are the most important tool for every team manager. If done right, 1-1s can support the report to grow, to become and stay happy, motivated, and productive. However, you need a certain toolkit for 1-1s. This toolkit contains different 1-1 types, records, questions, personal notes, journey maps, and software that can be applied in practice.

Improving Feedback Flows in Organizations with 'Complete Peer Feedback'

Posted on Feb 5, 2020

Improving Feedback Flows in Organizations with 'Complete Peer Feedback'

Traditional hierarchy-based feedback flows are limited as they don’t consider the useful feedback of peers. To improve this, I suggest a “Complete Peer Feedback” session: All team members come together and share their appreciation and growth potential for their peers. In this post, I present our experiences with this approach, why we are enthusiastic about it and how you can adopt it.

Effective Staff Appraisals with Employee Journey Maps

Posted on Nov 19, 2019

Effective Staff Appraisals with Employee Journey Maps

Employee journey maps are a tool for preparing and structuring staff appraisals. They trigger reflection processes and reveal the employee’s motivation. Moreover, they can lead to interesting insights as they compare the different perceptions of the participants. And the best is: You only need two sheets of paper and a pencil.