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That's basically recognizing that Goodhart's Law exists and fighting it. Unfortunately managers rarely have incentives to do it. Why invest in being more objec

by hbrn 4y ago

That's basically recognizing that Goodhart's Law exists and fighting it. Unfortunately managers rarely have incentives to do it. Why invest in being more objective if it lowers the perceived value of your successes? Your bullshitting peer that isn't doing this will get promoted instead of you. It can also be hard to even understand what are you sacrificing and why. I recently had an example where product manager was trying to improve conversion while another team was tapping into cheap low-quality traffic. PM always looked at a global conversion and kept wondering why the conversion was dropping despite his best efforts.

random314 4y ago
Absolutely true. Managers absolutely dont want countervailing metrics. I noticed a huge problem at a FAANG in a 40 person team and proposed the design of a single metric that incorporated all costs including countervailing metrics. There were no takers for the project. The senior manager leading 4 teams of 40 engineers told me privately. Your proposal is relatively cheap to implement and I can't ask for more HC for this and doesn't help me with empire building. Your metrics will make the team achievements look smaller and weaker. Your metrics will anger many of the teams, because the team switches the metric to target each half. In your example, targeting customer throughput one half and customer satisfaction the next half thus running a merry go round. The team has become comfortable switching metrics each half and it is simple work. If your metric is set as a target, the engineering problem becomes a lot harder and ICs will be upset. So, my proposal was canned.
- water554 4y ago
  That was nice of him to share that with you.
  - random314 4y ago
    Well, he didn't call it empire building himself :D That's my word. And I have been working with him for several years already, so discussions are frank! TBF, it can be a justifiable POV from a /r/antiwork POV. Why work terrible hours to make someone else rich!

by hbrn 4y ago

random314 4y ago

Absolutely true. Managers absolutely dont want countervailing metrics. I noticed a huge problem at a FAANG in a 40 person team and proposed the design of a single metric that incorporated all costs including countervailing metrics. There were no takers for the project. The senior manager leading 4 teams of 40 engineers told me privately. Your proposal is relatively cheap to implement and I can't ask for more HC for this and doesn't help me with empire building. Your metrics will make the team achievements look smaller and weaker. Your metrics will anger many of the teams, because the team switches the metric to target each half. In your example, targeting customer throughput one half and customer satisfaction the next half thus running a merry go round. The team has become comfortable switching metrics each half and it is simple work. If your metric is set as a target, the engineering problem becomes a lot harder and ICs will be upset. So, my proposal was canned.

water554 4y ago
That was nice of him to share that with you.
- random314 4y ago
  Well, he didn't call it empire building himself :D That's my word. And I have been working with him for several years already, so discussions are frank! TBF, it can be a justifiable POV from a /r/antiwork POV. Why work terrible hours to make someone else rich!