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I strongly disagree with this. I don't entirely agree with Strathern, for that matter. I would argue that (a) you need to calculate metrics that are important t

I strongly disagree with this. I don't entirely agree with Strathern, for that matter. I would argue that (a) you need to calculate metrics that are important to your business, (b) some metrics really are important as targets, and (c) you must communicate those targets to the people whose job it is to help the business meet them. The problem with "hire to fire" as described here is that it fails those criteria (the meta-metrics, if you will). Knowing your company's attrition/turnover rate is good; communicating that metric, at least to managers, is (I would argue) also good. But using it as a target that your managers must not go under is toxic to work culture and employee morale.

Retric 5y ago
There are zero relevant metrics a company can use that don’t create negative incentives. Maximizing profit, cut R&D. Business is simply complex, you can always sacrifice an intangible like brand perception to tweak some metric. But, it’s the along term that represents the vast majority of a companies value. At least assuming the company is likely to survive the next 2 years.
- chipotle_coyote 5y ago
  One of the very first companies I worked at was a local exchange carrier, back in the days those were a thing, and there was supposed to be a certain maximum number of days between the time an order was placed for a new line and the time the line was operational. (These were lines like frame relay drops, fractional or full T1s, etc., so fulfilling the order often required coordinating with other providers, colocation facilities, and so on.) But nobody was actually formally measuring this. I created a spreadsheet which actually calculated the metrics by querying a database for recent orders, showing which ones were still open and how long they'd been open for, and what the distributions of placement-to-fulfillment times were, and it turned out we were only hitting our own internal targets about half of the time. They didn't know that. There was a vague sense they weren't hitting all the targets, but there was no sense they were missing half the targets, in some cases by a lot. Maybe you can make a case that it was a very bad no good horrible thing for me to have done, but I'm going to respond that if you want your company to survive the next two years, you need to be know whether your company is doing the thing it is in business to do. Sure, it's really easy to use metrics to create negative incentives. That's not an argument against using metrics. It's an argument against using metrics badly.
  - Retric 5y ago
    You just used circular reasoning so justify a metric. Anyway, there is a huge difference in collecting data and using a metric as a goal. Process improvement may involve measuring what specifically was causing delays and possibly changing things. Or perhaps using a more complex classification system where anything involving company X will always take an extra N days and everyone needs to know this ahead of time etc etc. The point is you need to make complex tradeoff perhaps company X is worth the delay.
  - cratermoon 5y ago
    > maximum number of days between the time an order was placed for a new line and the time the line was operational. Once the employees know this is being measured, they will presume it's also a goal, because why else measure it? Then they will act in ways to reduce the time between order and operational status. Is there any reason to believe that they won't game the measure, pushing orders to "operational" in ways that are detrimental to the business?
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]

Retric 5y ago

There are zero relevant metrics a company can use that don’t create negative incentives. Maximizing profit, cut R&D. Business is simply complex, you can always sacrifice an intangible like brand perception to tweak some metric. But, it’s the along term that represents the vast majority of a companies value. At least assuming the company is likely to survive the next 2 years.

chipotle_coyote 5y ago
One of the very first companies I worked at was a local exchange carrier, back in the days those were a thing, and there was supposed to be a certain maximum number of days between the time an order was placed for a new line and the time the line was operational. (These were lines like frame relay drops, fractional or full T1s, etc., so fulfilling the order often required coordinating with other providers, colocation facilities, and so on.) But nobody was actually formally measuring this. I created a spreadsheet which actually calculated the metrics by querying a database for recent orders, showing which ones were still open and how long they'd been open for, and what the distributions of placement-to-fulfillment times were, and it turned out we were only hitting our own internal targets about half of the time. They didn't know that. There was a vague sense they weren't hitting all the targets, but there was no sense they were missing half the targets, in some cases by a lot. Maybe you can make a case that it was a very bad no good horrible thing for me to have done, but I'm going to respond that if you want your company to survive the next two years, you need to be know whether your company is doing the thing it is in business to do. Sure, it's really easy to use metrics to create negative incentives. That's not an argument against using metrics. It's an argument against using metrics badly.
- Retric 5y ago
  You just used circular reasoning so justify a metric. Anyway, there is a huge difference in collecting data and using a metric as a goal. Process improvement may involve measuring what specifically was causing delays and possibly changing things. Or perhaps using a more complex classification system where anything involving company X will always take an extra N days and everyone needs to know this ahead of time etc etc. The point is you need to make complex tradeoff perhaps company X is worth the delay.
- cratermoon 5y ago
  > maximum number of days between the time an order was placed for a new line and the time the line was operational. Once the employees know this is being measured, they will presume it's also a goal, because why else measure it? Then they will act in ways to reduce the time between order and operational status. Is there any reason to believe that they won't game the measure, pushing orders to "operational" in ways that are detrimental to the business?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]