Eric J Ma's Website

Evaluate on a Spider Plot

written by Eric J. Ma on 2015-06-27

Observation:

  1. Humans like to measure things.
  2. Humans also like to evaluate things.
  3. Humans usually like to have only one metric for evaluations.

Example: Academic performance.

  1. Performance is measured using grades: letter, or percentage.
  2. Performance is evaluated on how good or bad the letter/percentage is.
  3. All of that gets condensed to one number: GPA/Average.

It's easy to evaluate stuff on a single number. But it also creates some problems. Nuances are lost. Subspecialty strengths are not shown. Could we do better? I think so.

Proposal: Rather than evaluate stuff on a single line, I think we should start evaluating people on a multi-dimensional spider plot. Keep the metrics, but start evaluating people on more metrics than one.

Example: Job performance

  1. Peer-reviewed perception of performance.
  2. Company metrics attained.
  3. Cross-departmental engagements.

Basically, measure more things that are valued than just the single thing that seemingly captures everything... but doesn't.

Thoughts?

I send out a newsletter with tips and tools for data scientists. Come check it out at Substack.

If you would like to sponsor the coffee that goes into making my posts, please consider GitHub Sponsors!

Finally, I do free 30-minute GenAI strategy calls for organizations who are seeking guidance on how to best leverage this technology. Consider booking a call on Calendly if you're interested!