Re:“Please don't waste maintainers' time on your KPI grabbin...
by dragonwriter on Friday June 25, 2021 @06:45PM
(#27637172)
> The point they're trying to make is, I believe, that metrics shouldn't be targets.
Metrics are either (1) targets or (2) things that you are trying to analyze in relation to the metrics that are targets or (3) a waste of the time you spent gathering them.
The reason metrics are often bad when they become targets is the metrics arr usually not actual direct measures of goals, but things assumed to be convenient proxies, but when you push hard on optimizing them, they stop being good proxies because as well as being easier to measure than the real objective, once you pick any low-hanging productive fruit they are inevitably easier to improve in ways that don’t improve the real objective as much as the proxy (or at all, or which negatively impact it.)
Metrics are either (1) targets or (2) things that you are trying to analyze in relation to the metrics that are targets or (3) a waste of the time you spent gathering them.
The reason metrics are often bad when they become targets is the metrics arr usually not actual direct measures of goals, but things assumed to be convenient proxies, but when you push hard on optimizing them, they stop being good proxies because as well as being easier to measure than the real objective, once you pick any low-hanging productive fruit they are inevitably easier to improve in ways that don’t improve the real objective as much as the proxy (or at all, or which negatively impact it.)