Measuring quantitative vs. qualitative people metrics

Regarding measuring the staff metrics, it’s relatively easy to measure quantitative performance indicators. I can measure how many rebel command ships a Captain of a Star Destroyer blows up, or how many rebels a Storm Trooper captures, and how many staff are fed to the panna monster for incompetence by my Sith Lords.

But measuring quality is hard. If someone puts in 50hrs/week and another puts in 80hrs/week, by sheer numbers the second person is putting in an enormous amount of extra effort. However, it’s really about results, so if the person at 50hrs/week gets more done in less time compared to the other person, should be rewarded more.

Technical work is a little bit easier to measure quality – if you can link back the amount of defects to a person, that’s one way to do it. However defects aren’t the only indicator of quality, if someone implements a “better” solution that allows for easier maintenance going forward… that’s a higher degree of quality.

Or for the Star Destroyer Captain, if he can take out a rebel command ship with the least amount of damage taken to the ship, that’s a statement of quality to his strategy.

But how do you quantify it in measurable terms… Sometimes you need to just start somewhere – in this case dollars spent on repairs would be a start.