In the eyes of a PM, it is a useful metric. Because they think more code = more work. And in a way they're right, every solution will involve some amount of cod

In the eyes of a PM, it is a useful metric. Because they think more code = more work. And in a way they're right, every solution will involve some amount of code (unless it's some menial task like changing a config file). So perhaps in their ideal world, devs spend less time thinking and more time coding (suboptimal) solutions to ship stuff faster.