It’s called gaming the metrics and it’s totally a sign of dysfunction at the org level.

The team that decided to do this to keep the metrics happy rocks, though :)

As an engineer recently turned technical product manager, I think this is one of the values I've provided. I focus on feature deliverables and meeting timelines. How you get there is sausage making that doesn't need to be over-emphasized.

There are too many ways to game the metrics. I've done it, and I'm constantly impressed at seeing how innovative colleagues do it. If you focus so much on metrics during the development process, you're going to just add useless overhead and piss off developers. My boss comes from a sales background, and thankfully he gets it despite pressure from other senior leaders.

Exactly. Org-level metrics are a sign distrust and micromanaging. It's useful for a team to look at their own metrics so they can understand what they are capable of delivering, but no one else should care. That they can reliably and consistently deliver a satisfactory amount of work should be the only "metric" they are judged on.

>It’s called gaming the metrics and it’s totally a sign of dysfunction at the org level.

Have you seen actually dysfunctional organization?

Millions being burned over ridiculous mismanagement. Bureaucracy which takes up vast amounts of time. Tracking of completely meaningless metrics. An IT department which needs to be "worked around". Managers who's only interaction point is them asking you what they should write into their MS Project document. Constant shifting away of responsibilities. People making completely unqualified decisions over the heads of the actual people being concerned. Inter department conflicts.

Really I could go on, but a bit of massaging metrics (which are totally irrelevant anyway and their trackers can be safely fired) is not particularly bad.

The person you are responded to said it's a sign of dysfunctional org, not that it by itself make an org dysfunctional. There is a huge difference.

>The person you are responded to said it's a sign of dysfunctional org

He said it was his go to example of dysfunction.

I did not. Read more carefully. It’s “totally” a sign but it’s neither the worst nor the only one.

> Have you seen actually dysfunctional organization?

I have. I quit because of it. Imposed metrics and untold amounts of time gaming them to avoid losing one’s job was just one part of it. Most of the ones you mentioned in your first reply were also there.

Ah GP did ya, fair enough. I assume a bit of hyperbole but sure. I would infer that there is a lot more going on than just some guy worried about if some guy is worried about individual teams' metrics getting messed up but I don't know the whole story.

> Have you seen actually dysfunctional organization?

I have yet to see an organization that is not dysfunctional.

Some dysfunctions I can live with, though. I agree with you, if gaming the metrics wastes a reasonable time (say, 5 minutes a week), it's definitely not the worst.

It's still dysfunction even if the group in this case was able to finagle a happy ending to this specific story.

Charts and processes are there to serve people, not the other way around. If a particular group is clearly doing a great job, but the way your metrics are set up claims they're causing problems, then the problem is in your metrics.

The organization is dysfunctional because a higher-level manager is able to enforce their particular view of how these metrics are supposed to work at the expense of actually productive groups underneath them.

Note that if the GP had actually done what they were told, they would simply have not worked on all those bugs that came in mid-sprint until the next one.

My point was just that the example is a very low bar for dysfunction.