Against metrics: how measuring performance by numbers backfires

Re:Against metrics: how measuring performance by numbers bac... by solatic on Monday April 01, 2019 @02:27PM (#19546480)

In practice, you wouldn't really need to have a metric for the blue team, for the same reason you don't need metrics in a 5-person startup. Management is close to the blue team to replace being "close" to thousands of people, and because management is close to the blue team, can judge their output without needing a formal metric.

Maybe if you had an organization that was big enough to require several blue teams (a military or government?), then you'd need a metric for blue teams. Such a metric would probably compare the sub-KPIs of each sub-organization that each blue team was responsible for, including metrics on customer satisfaction, and warrant investigation if the metrics went under.

The blue teams can't really game that metric without the entire organization falling over, and if that happened, the executives would be to blame, not the blue team.

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Re:Against metrics: how measuring performance by numbers bac... by hammock on Monday April 01, 2019 @03:06PM (#19546934)

I know a girl who works for United Airlines' "blue team." It's a small (5-8 people?) inward-facing operations consulting group that reports directly to Oscar, the CEO.

It's composed of engineers and they analyze existing processes and create new metrics all day long.

They do worry about their own careers/promotions etc but the group is too small for there really to be any opportunities to "game" anything beyond basic politics.

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Re:Against metrics: how measuring performance by numbers bac... by pinko on Monday April 01, 2019 @06:23PM (#19548964)

I trust it's just habitual, but I think it's important to describe her as a woman and not a girl. When a company is casually described as being made up of men and girls, it sends an insidious message to everyone about who's taken more seriously.

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Re:Against metrics: how measuring performance by numbers bac... by dragonwriter on Tuesday April 02, 2019 @12:24AM (#19551087)

> In practice, you wouldn't really need to have a metric for the blue team

So the metrics are BS, and the company is really being run by subjective intuition, for which th metrics merely provide an impersonal rationalization.

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Re:Against metrics: how measuring performance by numbers bac... by solatic on Tuesday April 02, 2019 @01:06AM (#19551254)

No company is run by robots. There is no AI CEO.

The role of metrics is to grant visibility. Any policies governing outcomes, e.g. pay bonuses for high metrics, those policies are set and iteratively improved by people working off intuition.

Doesn't mean the metrics are bullshit, just means they're a tool.

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