what recommendations can I give to a colleague who is not preforming as well as expected

Question

I work on a small team( 3 of us) Our senior dev is getting frustrated with my other colleague (we are both junior devs) because:

a) She is taking longer than he thinks she should to get her portion of projects done. He believes she is taking 3 to 4 times longer than needed I'd say more like 2 times longer than it should take.

b) She doesn't get things done when she says she will. On the current project, she must have said she would get the tests written (meaning coded) four times and each time the next day they would not be done.

Naturally, my colleague feels that she is doing just what she needs to and in her words it's better to do it right than to get it done quickly with bugs.

Our senior dev doesn't want to go to our boss because he doesn't want to get her in trouble. We(senior Dev, my colleague and I) are meeting this afternoon to try and figure out as a team how to resolve the issue. Do you guys have any ideas?

Sure we have some ideas at least.... @Dan_Anderson I consider this question is difficult to answer as it seems is strongly opinion-based and also requires a good degree of knowledge in your working environment, something only you know...that could explain the DV. Could you try to narrow it down or edit it? Please check how to ask, have a good one. — DarkCygnus, Aug 02 '17 at 16:21
Possible duplicate of What can I do to make a coworkers lack of effort more visible? — David K, Aug 02 '17 at 17:05

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 02 '17 at 16:54

When someone is not performing at an acceptable level, the worst thing you can do is ignore that.

This rightfully needs to be discussed with her and she needs to be told her performance is not acceptable. If the only person who can have that conversation is her manager, then the senior dev needs to stop being afraid of hurting feelings and take the actions necessary for the work to get done.

Telling your boss you missed deadlines because of the performance problems of one employee that you never mentioned before the missed deadline is not going to go over well. Expecting others to take up the slack so you don't miss the deadline is going to cause the best employees to quit. Protecting the poor performer almost always makes the workplace bad for everyone else. You have to weigh that against hurting feelings.

And frankly the sooner someone knows they have a problem, the sooner it can be fixed. Someone unwilling to try to fix is a bad fit for your company and needs to be moved on. She needs to understand that perfect is not acceptable in business terms because perfect is far more expensive than good.

If the senior dev thinks there is a problem, he should go to the boss to determine if he agrees or not. A junior dev could bring up issues as well but is less likely to be taken seriously due to lack of experience. But it shoudl be brought up with specifics and details not just a vague, I don;t thinkthis person works fast enough. — HLGEM, Aug 02 '17 at 18:48
I have seen plenty of senior devs bring up an issue like this to a manager because they are sometimes the person who works with that person most closely or whose work is impacted by the problem.. Especially if the senior is unofficially the lead dev. I personally have both defended someone from a manager who didn't like the person and suggested that someone else needed to go when I wasn't in a management position. And when I did that my boss was happy to have the input. It does depend on your boss's character though.Some people are less likely to appreciate it than others. — HLGEM, Aug 02 '17 at 19:32

what recommendations can I give to a colleague who is not preforming as well as expected

1 Answers1