Re:On the Folly of Rewarding A, While Hoping for B (1975) [pdf]
by RcouF1uZ4gsC on Thursday June 18, 2020 @02:41AM
(#23560412)
Along the same lines, one of my biggest pet peeves is rewarding using Metric C, which is used not because it actually correlates with your goals, but because it is easy to measure and get a concrete number. An example would be using lines of code written per day as a measure of developer productivity.
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Re:On the Folly of Rewarding A, While Hoping for B (1975) [pdf]
by 082349872349872 on Thursday June 18, 2020 @05:01AM
(#23561202)
My current favourite Metric C:
"If you feel like showing off, average everything into everything else and call it the Gross Index of Total Enemy Morale. This won't fool anyone who knows the propaganda business, and you won't be able to do anything with or about it, but you can hang it on a month-by-month chart in the front office, where visitors can be impressed at getting in on a military secret. (Incidentally, if some smart enemy agent sees it and reports it back, enemy intelligence experts will go mad trying to figure out just how you got that figure. It's like the old joke that the average American is ten-elevenths White, 52% female, and always slightly pregnant.)"
Re:On the Folly of Rewarding A, While Hoping for B (1975) [pdf]
by bonoboTP on Thursday June 18, 2020 @04:52AM
(#23561149)
Or of course Measure D, which just so happens to be high for yourself and people you like (or is easy to optimize for you / them).
Re:On the Folly of Rewarding A, While Hoping for B (1975) [pdf]
by artsyca on Thursday June 18, 2020 @03:16AM
(#23560588)
Not to mention once metrics become targets, they cease being useful as metrics because they're apt to be gamed.
It seems you simply can't win when you need to guard against mindlessly selfish behaviour.
Re:On the Folly of Rewarding A, While Hoping for B (1975) [pdf]
by RichardHeart on Thursday June 18, 2020 @04:37AM
(#23561063)