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Managers like dashboards. KPIs are dashboards. Your car dashboard is great for staying within speed limit, but now try driving without taking your eyes from t

Managers like dashboards. KPIs are dashboards. Your car dashboard is great for staying within speed limit, but now try driving without taking your eyes from the speed dial. :-)

midasuni 3y ago
My car has a HUD which puts the current limit and the speed I’m doing on the windscreen
stefanka 3y ago
great analogy!
- phalf 3y ago
  It's even great in the sense that a speedometer tends to make people aim for "I need to go 65 mph" instead of "I should not go above 65 mph" which a speed limit is actually intended to mean. The speed limit became a target instead of being a limit.
  - Arch-TK 3y ago
    The speed limit being a target is how it is treated in driver education and tests in the UK. You can fail a driving test if you spend too much time driving more than ~5 miles per hour below the speed limit in safe conditions.
    - tristor 3y ago
      This is largely because speed limits are too low. In safe conditions, most roadways are built in such a way that a modern vehicle can safely go 10-20mph over the speed limit without difficulty or increased risk. There are several reasons for this. The point though is that timidity in a driver is actually more dangerous than exceeding the speed limit. Being consistently below the speed limit is a strong sign of timidity.
      - panragon 3y ago
        I don't think it's so much about the timidity of the driver, it's the effect on driving slow has on people behind you. Driving below the speed limit increases the amount of drivers who need to do overtaking, which are moments substantially more dangerous than just driving straight. If it weren't for forcing other people to overtake I don't think we'd really care, even if it was a sign of timidity. Very common to see older people drive slow on the highway because going 100KM/h seems scary to them. This is, of course, absurd, since driving 80KM/hs on a 100KM/h road causes way more moments for bad things to happen because you're forcing everyone to merge into the speed lane, including trucks with bigger blind spots, rather then only the drivers choosing to go above the speed limit. If you do this you should absolutely be fined, and that's not because it's a good metric for timidity (which I agree can be bad for drivers in general), but rather that the action itself causes harm.
        phalf 3y ago
        > Driving below the speed limit increases the amount of drivers who need to do overtaking, Nobody "needs" to overtake or is "forced" to doing something dangerous outside safe margins. Seriously, this is blame shifting when somebody does something stupid. When you do, it's 100% on you. 100km/h on a highway with everybody otherwise going 130km/h is rare. This is about a 65mph road (100km/h?) where somebody goes 95km/h and everybody behind them goes berserk. That's an attitude that needs to change, not by the 95km/h driver, but by everybody behind. Going 100km/h is not a right, does not force you to do stupid overtaking maneuvers and the time you lose by going 95km/h is negligible. At least it's substantially less than you'd expect, since there are many other factors that slow you down on a journey. You rarely drive for 3 hours straight, no interruptions, no other traffic on the road. Even if you did, doing 100km/h instead of 95km/h would get you there by 9 minutes earlier. That's the upper limit here, but you are likely going to save less than 5 min. After 3 hours.
        tristor 3y ago
        We (for some measure of we, but at least the US and most Commonwealth countries) have laws against this. It's called "Impeding the Flow of Traffic". As far as it matters, you are absolutely and directly wrong about your statement here. It's the 95km/h driver that needs to change. You seem to have an agenda in your comments here, and in some of them I think you have a point, in this one you are overplaying your hand.
  - gjm11 3y ago
    Traffic flows more smoothly when everyone is going at about the same speed. To achieve this without communication between vehicles, you need some "obvious" speed for everyone to try to drive at. In many contexts the speed limit fits this need pretty well. There are situations where it doesn't. These are mostly also situations where the speed limit doesn't work terribly well as a limit either. For instance, bad weather or winding roads may mean that driving at or near the limit is unsafe. In that case, sure, it's not good for everyone to coordinate on driving at the speed limit, but it's also not good for everyone to think of the speed limit as the right upper bound for driving to be safe. So I think that in most situations either (1) treating the speed limit as a rough target as well as a limit is mostly a good idea, or (2) the speed you try to use as a limit should be something other than the nominal speed limit.
    - mitthrowaway2 3y ago
      Vehicles can all synchronize speed independently based on a well-tuned control law while observing only the distance to the vehicle in front of them. So looking out the window is sufficient for that, if the drivers are not terrible. If driving at the speed limit on a winding road is unsafe, the speed limit is probably too high for that road. But in practice, it's complex, winding roads that cause people to drive at reasonable speeds, rather than numbers posted on signs.
jollyllama 3y ago
Indeed. There's no substitute for vision.
zerkten 3y ago
Do managers actually like dashboards and KPIs? Not all managers report directly into the CEO, so suffer from the problems as much as their underlings. Management want indicators of certainty and progress with the least effort possible. Superficially, dashboards composed of KPIs give them what they want. Good CEOs are unlikely to rely on these, but instead think of them as an alignment and investigative tool. Each layer of the organisation aligns itself around some KPIs with lower levels often feeding upwards through the hierarchy. As you further down the hierarchy things get messier as they are further from the executives, may have less experience/skill with using tools like KPIs in the way the CEO wants, and there many more teams to align across with problems like duplication, etc. The majority of engineers are at the bottom of the pyramid. Their management is coming from their own ranks with little support, so it's not a surprise there is misunderstanding and misuse. In programming, when the career ladder often involves stopping dev work and becoming a manager, it only makes things worse. When I see peers promoted into management, I always hope it's the ones that have capacity for leadership versus experience because they are going to be the ones that adapt KPIs to match the internal and external needs of the company.

Managers like dashboards. KPIs are dashboards. Your car dashboard is great for staying within speed limit, but now try driving without taking your eyes from the speed dial. :-)

midasuni 3y ago

My car has a HUD which puts the current limit and the speed I’m doing on the windscreen

stefanka 3y ago

great analogy!

phalf 3y ago
It's even great in the sense that a speedometer tends to make people aim for "I need to go 65 mph" instead of "I should not go above 65 mph" which a speed limit is actually intended to mean. The speed limit became a target instead of being a limit.
- Arch-TK 3y ago
  The speed limit being a target is how it is treated in driver education and tests in the UK. You can fail a driving test if you spend too much time driving more than ~5 miles per hour below the speed limit in safe conditions.
  - tristor 3y ago
    This is largely because speed limits are too low. In safe conditions, most roadways are built in such a way that a modern vehicle can safely go 10-20mph over the speed limit without difficulty or increased risk. There are several reasons for this. The point though is that timidity in a driver is actually more dangerous than exceeding the speed limit. Being consistently below the speed limit is a strong sign of timidity.
    - panragon 3y ago
      I don't think it's so much about the timidity of the driver, it's the effect on driving slow has on people behind you. Driving below the speed limit increases the amount of drivers who need to do overtaking, which are moments substantially more dangerous than just driving straight. If it weren't for forcing other people to overtake I don't think we'd really care, even if it was a sign of timidity. Very common to see older people drive slow on the highway because going 100KM/h seems scary to them. This is, of course, absurd, since driving 80KM/hs on a 100KM/h road causes way more moments for bad things to happen because you're forcing everyone to merge into the speed lane, including trucks with bigger blind spots, rather then only the drivers choosing to go above the speed limit. If you do this you should absolutely be fined, and that's not because it's a good metric for timidity (which I agree can be bad for drivers in general), but rather that the action itself causes harm.
      - phalf 3y ago
        > Driving below the speed limit increases the amount of drivers who need to do overtaking, Nobody "needs" to overtake or is "forced" to doing something dangerous outside safe margins. Seriously, this is blame shifting when somebody does something stupid. When you do, it's 100% on you. 100km/h on a highway with everybody otherwise going 130km/h is rare. This is about a 65mph road (100km/h?) where somebody goes 95km/h and everybody behind them goes berserk. That's an attitude that needs to change, not by the 95km/h driver, but by everybody behind. Going 100km/h is not a right, does not force you to do stupid overtaking maneuvers and the time you lose by going 95km/h is negligible. At least it's substantially less than you'd expect, since there are many other factors that slow you down on a journey. You rarely drive for 3 hours straight, no interruptions, no other traffic on the road. Even if you did, doing 100km/h instead of 95km/h would get you there by 9 minutes earlier. That's the upper limit here, but you are likely going to save less than 5 min. After 3 hours.
        tristor 3y ago
        We (for some measure of we, but at least the US and most Commonwealth countries) have laws against this. It's called "Impeding the Flow of Traffic". As far as it matters, you are absolutely and directly wrong about your statement here. It's the 95km/h driver that needs to change. You seem to have an agenda in your comments here, and in some of them I think you have a point, in this one you are overplaying your hand.
- gjm11 3y ago
  Traffic flows more smoothly when everyone is going at about the same speed. To achieve this without communication between vehicles, you need some "obvious" speed for everyone to try to drive at. In many contexts the speed limit fits this need pretty well. There are situations where it doesn't. These are mostly also situations where the speed limit doesn't work terribly well as a limit either. For instance, bad weather or winding roads may mean that driving at or near the limit is unsafe. In that case, sure, it's not good for everyone to coordinate on driving at the speed limit, but it's also not good for everyone to think of the speed limit as the right upper bound for driving to be safe. So I think that in most situations either (1) treating the speed limit as a rough target as well as a limit is mostly a good idea, or (2) the speed you try to use as a limit should be something other than the nominal speed limit.
  - mitthrowaway2 3y ago
    Vehicles can all synchronize speed independently based on a well-tuned control law while observing only the distance to the vehicle in front of them. So looking out the window is sufficient for that, if the drivers are not terrible. If driving at the speed limit on a winding road is unsafe, the speed limit is probably too high for that road. But in practice, it's complex, winding roads that cause people to drive at reasonable speeds, rather than numbers posted on signs.

jollyllama 3y ago

Indeed. There's no substitute for vision.

zerkten 3y ago

Do managers actually like dashboards and KPIs? Not all managers report directly into the CEO, so suffer from the problems as much as their underlings. Management want indicators of certainty and progress with the least effort possible. Superficially, dashboards composed of KPIs give them what they want. Good CEOs are unlikely to rely on these, but instead think of them as an alignment and investigative tool. Each layer of the organisation aligns itself around some KPIs with lower levels often feeding upwards through the hierarchy. As you further down the hierarchy things get messier as they are further from the executives, may have less experience/skill with using tools like KPIs in the way the CEO wants, and there many more teams to align across with problems like duplication, etc. The majority of engineers are at the bottom of the pyramid. Their management is coming from their own ranks with little support, so it's not a surprise there is misunderstanding and misuse. In programming, when the career ladder often involves stopping dev work and becoming a manager, it only makes things worse. When I see peers promoted into management, I always hope it's the ones that have capacity for leadership versus experience because they are going to be the ones that adapt KPIs to match the internal and external needs of the company.