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American corporate culture seems to live by the motto "Don't think - measure!"

• Vivtek 15y ago
  Well, in general, I'm in favor of measuring - "thinking" is often a buzzword that means jumping on whichever fad bandwagon you just saw in the airline magazine. It's picking what to measure where some thought is required.
  • billswift 15y ago
    There is also the problem that with an emphasis on "measurement" there comes an associated emphasis on values that are easy to measure. The current example is the difficulty of measuring programmer productivity, especially the weaknesses of LOC as a metric. The classic example of this is the rule of the management dweebs in the Defense Department during the Vietnam war and the near collapse of small unit cohesion and esprit de corps during that time.
• drblast 15y ago
  I've witnessed this. Counterintuitively, I think it's a side-effect of not understanding math. To those without a good understanding of statistics, numbers and graphs are a mystical, magical way to easily improve just about anything.
  • marshray 15y ago
    It's also a way to avoid personal responsibility and human judgment.