Team review than individual review

While agile promotes self-organized teams, more teaming, team goals rather than individual goals, I was wondering what happens to performance reviews in an agile organization? Should you look at promoting team work by appraising their performance by teams OR use individual performance appraisals to run the age-old performance management methods? If teams need to be promoted, can we then use models such that teams themselves appraise to avoid the management coming in their way to prove what one acheived and what one did not achieve?

These are intersting quetions to ask, I am still looking at strategies that can really be easy to implement, comprehend and finally that which is tamper free for teams to hold their heart and say I deserve what I am getting.

Basic foundation to make this work seem obvious:

a. Clear communication of the goals: All the teams and infact the entire organization should be clear of what is the final goal to acheieve. This will help the teams to understand how they can mould their contribution to acheieve the goals. The goals can be metrics driven like improve CI coverage to 90%, improve automated testing to 100%, Improve time to release by 20%, reduce leaked defects by 15%, Improve team velocity by 5% etc.

b. Communication of the measurement framework: Articulate clearly how these metrics be measured, including the details of the tools used. Ensure everyone understands and agrees to the framework.

c. Constant communication of how the teams are faring on these metrics: A constant communication of how teams are doing using the framework and reporting. This will help the teams to see how others are doing and how they can improve their work such that they can get better off.

This simple and common sensical steps will help the management to achieve what they want, while the teams align themselves to prove their worth. The motivation to win will not only fulfil a sense of achievement but will also yeild a satisfaction of contributing to the companies values effectively.

Has anyone tried and made it work? Dave blogs on Performance Review and getting rid of it, but how do you do this the agile way?

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