[teampractices] Kahneman, loss aversion, and achieving 75% of your goals

[Anne Gomez]

Hi there! Sorry for my slow response - I was on vacation for some time last
week and am just getting caught up.

Thanks for your perspective around the sunk cost fallacy and, in
particular, how this creates problems in our relationships with
communities. You make really good points about the cost of this type of
thinking.

On Wed, Mar 14, 2018 at 12:41 AM, Jeroen De Dauw <jeroendedauw at gmail.com>
wrote:

>
>
> > - Management based on *outcomes* rather than *outputs *for people whose
> roles are strategically oriented (PMs, for example)
>
> I do not understand this point. Could you reword or elaborate?
>

Sure, thanks for asking.

IMO, at the high level (org level rather than individual contributor) our
work should be oriented around what change we achieve in the world, rather
than what things we produce. Every staff member doesn't necessarily need to
be thinking of their work in this way, but some roles (such as those that
are setting strategy and selecting what projects to take on) should. Their
managers should be managing them based on the impact that they have in the
world rather than on their ability to deliver a project.

In some other cases that are not outcome oriented, such as an individual
analyst or engineer or designer, delivery (and quality) is likely the right
way to manage as that's what makes a person in that role good at that job.

I see this connecting to the question that Joel raised because if we're
held accountable to outcomes (the change we want to see) rather than
outputs (producing a thing), we'll be more diligent about throwing away the
projects that don't seem to achieve those outcomes. We'll also be
encouraged to figure out early which projects won't work, leading back to
the idea of focusing on cheap experiments.

Just to be clear - this is my thinking and not necessarily a widely held
Foundation perspective. I'm teasing this out as I'm writing, so let me know
if anything is unclear.

Anne


> Cheers
>
> --
> Jeroen De Dauw | https://entropywins.wtf | https://keybase.io/jeroendedauw
> Software Crafter | Speaker | Student | Strategist | Contributor to Wikimedia
> and Open Source
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>
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-- 
*Anne Gomez* // Senior Program Manager, New Readers
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/New_Readers>
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