I think a better version is "you get what you measure". Metrics fail when what they measure isn't directly related to what you want. I'd much rather have n con

I think a better version is "you get what you measure". Metrics fail when what they measure isn't directly related to what you want. I'd much rather have n conversions than n000 LoC, if all I get to pick is n. (I suspect this is especially an issue when you find a metric that retroactively correlates reasonably well with something desired. For example, you find that closing a ticket in less than 20 minutes correlates with the issue getting an incomplete solution. Then you make it into a metric, at which point you're bitten by the fact the correlation no longer works: people just leave the ticket open in a tab for a few hours, ignoring it but letting the clock run, before they close it. It's not enough for a metric to historically correlate with good things, "gaming" the metric has to cause the good things as well. Obligatory relevant XKCD (the helpful comments one): https://xkcd.com/810/ https://xkcd.com/810/)