3 ms·
In a related way, I often talk about the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle of Metrics. The more you measure with the intent of adjusting the process, the more p
by mikekchar 10y ago
In a related way, I often talk about the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle of Metrics. The more you measure with the intent of adjusting the process, the more people intentionally and unintentionally drive their behaviour based on the metric. So it's a real skill to minimise measurement so that you are able to control the areas you need to control without creating incentives for people to do bizarre things in areas you didn't think about. It always drives me crazy when managers start measuring things "just in case I want to use the information in the future". It pretty much guarantees unpredictable behaviour of the workers.
- abbeyj 10y agoThis sounds like Goodhart's Law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law)
- philipov 10y agoThis reminds me of a recent observation by (I think) some Princeton ethical philosopher, that any theory of human behavior becomes invalid once it becomes known by a significant proportion of the population, because people's behavior anticipates expectations of their behavior.
- kordless 10y agoThis is simply thinking about thinking, which is allowed (at least in Zen) as long as one doesn't think about thinking about thinking. In other words, holding irrational beliefs and spreading those beliefs in a viral way, either in the population, or inside one's own head, creates suffering if there is no means to end holding the irrational beliefs.