I thought this was a great post. I've also struggled with how to handle "incompetent but nice" employees. It's never easy, but what I've found:
1. This is why it's important to give as objective feedback as possible to employees, and to have it tracked over time. If someone is really nice but not performing, often times it's hard for them to see because they are working really hard.
2. See if there is a place where the person can maximize their value even if it's working on something else. I've seen people move out of software dev because they were just fundamentally slow coders, yet they thrived in other positions.
3. I think it's important to not let it fester. If it does, it usually ends badly for everyone.
The thing that's difficult is that software engineering is notoriously impossible to measure productivity in a purely objective/automatic way that can't be gamed. This contrasts with something like, for example, a sports player: if you're a baseball pitcher but your stats don't cut it, nobody cares how nice you are.
That's why I think it's important to, as much as possible, set expectations and review them frequently with employees.
1. This is why it's important to give as objective feedback as possible to employees, and to have it tracked over time. If someone is really nice but not performing, often times it's hard for them to see because they are working really hard.
2. See if there is a place where the person can maximize their value even if it's working on something else. I've seen people move out of software dev because they were just fundamentally slow coders, yet they thrived in other positions.
3. I think it's important to not let it fester. If it does, it usually ends badly for everyone.
The thing that's difficult is that software engineering is notoriously impossible to measure productivity in a purely objective/automatic way that can't be gamed. This contrasts with something like, for example, a sports player: if you're a baseball pitcher but your stats don't cut it, nobody cares how nice you are.
That's why I think it's important to, as much as possible, set expectations and review them frequently with employees.