4 ms·
is there not some formal "rule of thumb" describing that attempts to improve a system through "point based" incentives ultimately lead to undesirable outcomes a
by ausbah 8y ago
is there not some formal "rule of thumb" describing that attempts to improve a system through "point based" incentives ultimately lead to undesirable outcomes as the incentives naively skew focus away from the starting goal of improving the system to simply gaming the point structure?
what I wrote feels hard to put cleanly into words, but does that makes any sense to anyone else?
- alehul 8y agoGood question! Goodhart’s Law fits this quite well. :) From Wikipedia: “Goodhart's law is an adage named after economist Charles Goodhart, which has been phrased by Marilyn Strathern as "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure." [0] [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart's_law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart's_law
- dr_dshiv 8y agoYeah, but read his actual papers. Goodhart doesn't actually advocate against using measures. He just shows how measures can be corrupted and presents suggestions on avoiding this
- bschne 8y agoGoodhart‘s Law - „When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure“ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart's_law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart's_law
- NeedMoreTea 8y agoAs well as Goodhart, there's also "People with targets and jobs dependent upon meeting them will probably meet the targets - even if they have to destroy the enterprise to do it." W. Edwards Deming As seen everywhere including in hospital care outcomes, waiting lists and school standards.