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> Elsewhere I've seen it claimed that actually, most people want to do a good job, and so any metric ends up doing more harm than good. Indeed. This is Goodhar
by Timwi 4y ago
> Elsewhere I've seen it claimed that actually, most people want to do a good job, and so any metric ends up doing more harm than good.
Indeed. This is Goodhart’s Law.
- lmm 4y agoGoodhart's Law is that the metric becomes an invalid measure. What I find interesting is the stronger claim, that performance on the thing you were actually trying to encourage will go down.
- beckingz 4y agoInvalidating the metric after it becomes a target means that the metric is no longer an indicator of performance, so you have no guarantees that an increase in the metric results in an increase in performance.
- Groxx 4y agoIn some ways I think it follows trivially from the law: energy has been redirected away from the-thing-you-want and towards the-thing-you-measure. Unless you think effort spent on the metric increases the total energy of the system, anyway. Personally I would bet it pretty much always decreases it, not even breaking even.