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Bad metrics can wreck corporate cultures. Let’s attack the other straw man: metric-free orgs. Symptoms: - Resources (and credit and promotions) are given to

Bad metrics can wreck corporate cultures. Let’s attack the other straw man: metric-free orgs. Symptoms: - Resources (and credit and promotions) are given to the most articulate and outgoing rather than the most effective. (Marketing budget goes to the extrovert rather than the manager producing the best ROI) - When dates slip, they slip a lot. The night before a release it’s announced that there will be a 3 month delay. (Bad for anyone having to explain “If it’s 3 months, why couldn’t you tell me that sooner?” to a customer) - Unanticipated earnings and revenue misses. (Same issue as above, but bad to anyone talking to investors) - Poor prioritization. Effort is spent on squeaky wheels versus high value problems. (Engineers spend time helping “that nice person in accounting” versus solving a customer problem that brings in hard money) With all the things an exec needs to worry about, they can’t effectively operate without good data to drive decisions. Data needs to have human interpretation as well. Of course bad data can be worse than no data, but that’s another story.

commandlinefan 4y ago
While you're correct, all of these things happen in metric-driven organizations, too... often exacerbated by the obsessive metrics focus.
kqr 4y ago
I agree with you completely except on one part. Metrics is not the only solution to this. The other option, more difficult but more effective if you can pull it off, is for individual contributors to not make these mistakes in the first place. Having executives fix the bad decisions by individual contributors is sort of treating the symptoms rather than the underlying cause. It adds extra work because now everyone has to produce numbers about their work in addition to work -- and some of the numbers might not be better than tea leaves, statistically speaking. So how do you get ICs to make the correct decision? Training, ownership, free flow of information about strategy and market, involving everyone in setting the direction, etc. The opposite of the instinct of an executive going by the numbers. ---- To stave off an eventual misunderstanding: I'm not saying you shouldn't measure what you do, operationalise your definitions, define in advance when you reject your hypotheses etc. I'm just saying that producing these numbers for yourself and your peers is far more effective than doing it for someone removed from the day-to-day business because they don't have the same context and nuance.
- mathattack 4y ago
  I agree with everything you say. And bad numbers are awful. At some point of organizational size, executives can’t stay on top of everything and make good decisions without quantitative metrics. That doesn’t mean making everyone full time metric gatherers. It doesn’t mean looking at the data uncritically. It doesn’t mean ignoring what you can’t measure. It does mean smartly measuring what you can.
  - kqr 4y ago
    The alternative solution is that executives don't make decisions, only coordinate between the people on the ground who have the necessary context to make decisions.
    - mathattack 4y ago
      That works for 80% of the problems, and something that should be done. Some problems require optimizing for the whole rather than individual teams or departments. How do you allocate capital between business units if you aren’t measuring ROI? How do you decide what practices work best if you’re not measuring how people work and what they’re doing?
      - kqr 4y ago
        Not all functions are best evaluated through ROI, but if you're an executive whose hammer is ROI you'll start to look at everything as a liability. Free markets are generally better at allocating capital than central control. It's also more flexible in adapting to different measures of success. Standardising work is especially important that it's done by the participants in said work, and not dictated from above. That can be done democratically.
        mathattack 4y ago
        Agree. Very few execs are good enough to base capital allocation decisions on gut feel alone though. “It feels like we are short on internal audit” versus “a firm our size should be doing these 10 audits per year. An audit takes $y and if we don’t do it, the consequences are measurable with Y….”
the_only_law 4y ago
> Resources (and credit and promotions) are given to the most articulate and outgoing rather than the most effective Somewhat of a random anecdote, but the first time I realized this was when I was in HS. I participated in what you may call a "hackathon". It was really just a competition open to HS kids that involved building an app to a spec. I was lucky I have a friend with absolutely amazing artistic abilities, who did a lot of work on our UI and logo and I confidently say we had the best work out of everyone we completed with, both in terms of appearance and functionality. But when it came time to present our work, I noticed something, while I never doubted our technical competences basically everyone before us had public speaking ability on the level of a politician. Nearly everyone else slaughtered us in terms of being able to present their work to the judges. At the end of the day, our technical and artistic abilities paid off well enough, placing us just barely high enough to move on to another level, but it was clear, even if we were technically solid, we had approached the competition all wrong. We probably could have placed higher with a worse application, but better presentation.
- wmeredith 4y ago
  This is a great anecdote. You have got to be able to sell. If you can't–or you can't hire someone who can–you're dead in the water. It doesn't really matter how good your product is.
  - chrsig 4y ago
    I'm not completely convinced. I'm sure it always helps, and I'm sure in many cases it's a necessity in order to sell the product. I'd like to believe that there are some products that are good enough and solve pressing enough issues so as to sell themselves. It's probably a naive hope, but I like to cling to it. I wish there were enough honesty in sales as to not leave such a sour taste.
    - didericis 4y ago
      I think the best way to handle that sour taste is to make a product that actually lives up to sales hype.
faangiq 4y ago
Yea zero metrics is death. Big sign of low IQ orgs.

commandlinefan 4y ago

While you're correct, all of these things happen in metric-driven organizations, too... often exacerbated by the obsessive metrics focus.

kqr 4y ago

I agree with you completely except on one part. Metrics is not the only solution to this. The other option, more difficult but more effective if you can pull it off, is for individual contributors to not make these mistakes in the first place. Having executives fix the bad decisions by individual contributors is sort of treating the symptoms rather than the underlying cause. It adds extra work because now everyone has to produce numbers about their work in addition to work -- and some of the numbers might not be better than tea leaves, statistically speaking. So how do you get ICs to make the correct decision? Training, ownership, free flow of information about strategy and market, involving everyone in setting the direction, etc. The opposite of the instinct of an executive going by the numbers. ---- To stave off an eventual misunderstanding: I'm not saying you shouldn't measure what you do, operationalise your definitions, define in advance when you reject your hypotheses etc. I'm just saying that producing these numbers for yourself and your peers is far more effective than doing it for someone removed from the day-to-day business because they don't have the same context and nuance.

mathattack 4y ago
I agree with everything you say. And bad numbers are awful. At some point of organizational size, executives can’t stay on top of everything and make good decisions without quantitative metrics. That doesn’t mean making everyone full time metric gatherers. It doesn’t mean looking at the data uncritically. It doesn’t mean ignoring what you can’t measure. It does mean smartly measuring what you can.
- kqr 4y ago
  The alternative solution is that executives don't make decisions, only coordinate between the people on the ground who have the necessary context to make decisions.
  - mathattack 4y ago
    That works for 80% of the problems, and something that should be done. Some problems require optimizing for the whole rather than individual teams or departments. How do you allocate capital between business units if you aren’t measuring ROI? How do you decide what practices work best if you’re not measuring how people work and what they’re doing?
    - kqr 4y ago
      Not all functions are best evaluated through ROI, but if you're an executive whose hammer is ROI you'll start to look at everything as a liability. Free markets are generally better at allocating capital than central control. It's also more flexible in adapting to different measures of success. Standardising work is especially important that it's done by the participants in said work, and not dictated from above. That can be done democratically.
      - mathattack 4y ago
        Agree. Very few execs are good enough to base capital allocation decisions on gut feel alone though. “It feels like we are short on internal audit” versus “a firm our size should be doing these 10 audits per year. An audit takes $y and if we don’t do it, the consequences are measurable with Y….”

the_only_law 4y ago

> Resources (and credit and promotions) are given to the most articulate and outgoing rather than the most effective Somewhat of a random anecdote, but the first time I realized this was when I was in HS. I participated in what you may call a "hackathon". It was really just a competition open to HS kids that involved building an app to a spec. I was lucky I have a friend with absolutely amazing artistic abilities, who did a lot of work on our UI and logo and I confidently say we had the best work out of everyone we completed with, both in terms of appearance and functionality. But when it came time to present our work, I noticed something, while I never doubted our technical competences basically everyone before us had public speaking ability on the level of a politician. Nearly everyone else slaughtered us in terms of being able to present their work to the judges. At the end of the day, our technical and artistic abilities paid off well enough, placing us just barely high enough to move on to another level, but it was clear, even if we were technically solid, we had approached the competition all wrong. We probably could have placed higher with a worse application, but better presentation.

wmeredith 4y ago
This is a great anecdote. You have got to be able to sell. If you can't–or you can't hire someone who can–you're dead in the water. It doesn't really matter how good your product is.
- chrsig 4y ago
  I'm not completely convinced. I'm sure it always helps, and I'm sure in many cases it's a necessity in order to sell the product. I'd like to believe that there are some products that are good enough and solve pressing enough issues so as to sell themselves. It's probably a naive hope, but I like to cling to it. I wish there were enough honesty in sales as to not leave such a sour taste.
  - didericis 4y ago
    I think the best way to handle that sour taste is to make a product that actually lives up to sales hype.

faangiq 4y ago

Yea zero metrics is death. Big sign of low IQ orgs.