3 ms·

I was specifically talking about where I work with that criticism about KPI and sales. I have no idea what might be driving Microsoft's design philosophy. You

by Sakos 2y ago

I was specifically talking about where I work with that criticism about KPI and sales. I have no idea what might be driving Microsoft's design philosophy. You might be into something though.

mewpmewp2 2y ago
Yeah, I wanted to specify that in my experience everyone does want increased sales and have results with KPIs, but many times these things actually won't do it. Maybe they will improve some KPIs, but still won't have results where they would bring in more sales/profits. E.g. KPIs are cherrypicked, gamed in some way, they are flawed, increasing the KPIs comes at cost of something else, so sales are actually unaffected or they even have a negative effect. Or at least leadership definitely and obviously wants it, but product and design under leadership wants to just convince leadership that it's going to do that. But frequently it isn't or it's very difficult to analyze that data and it's easy to cherry pick flawed metrics retroactively to try to convince leadership that it actually did some improvements. It's difficult to question and verify any sort of metrics without launching a whole investigation into it yourself, which rarely someone would have an incentive to do so. It could be that at your workplace maybe these things actually do improve KPIs and sales, I would actually be more happy with that compared to if there are meaningless changes or changes that make things worse that don't improve sales at all.
- Sakos 2y ago
  My problem with KPIs and sales is that I've seen the people I work with actively make decisions that make the experience worse for our users because it increases the amount and/or value of sales we make, verified through A/B testing. Meanwhile ignoring or deprioritising legitimate issues because it can be very difficult to "prove" that it would increase KPIs.

3 ms·

I was specifically talking about where I work with that criticism about KPI and sales. I have no idea what might be driving Microsoft's design philosophy. You

by Sakos 2y ago

I was specifically talking about where I work with that criticism about KPI and sales. I have no idea what might be driving Microsoft's design philosophy. You might be into something though.

mewpmewp2 2y ago
Yeah, I wanted to specify that in my experience everyone does want increased sales and have results with KPIs, but many times these things actually won't do it. Maybe they will improve some KPIs, but still won't have results where they would bring in more sales/profits. E.g. KPIs are cherrypicked, gamed in some way, they are flawed, increasing the KPIs comes at cost of something else, so sales are actually unaffected or they even have a negative effect. Or at least leadership definitely and obviously wants it, but product and design under leadership wants to just convince leadership that it's going to do that. But frequently it isn't or it's very difficult to analyze that data and it's easy to cherry pick flawed metrics retroactively to try to convince leadership that it actually did some improvements. It's difficult to question and verify any sort of metrics without launching a whole investigation into it yourself, which rarely someone would have an incentive to do so. It could be that at your workplace maybe these things actually do improve KPIs and sales, I would actually be more happy with that compared to if there are meaningless changes or changes that make things worse that don't improve sales at all.
- Sakos 2y ago
  My problem with KPIs and sales is that I've seen the people I work with actively make decisions that make the experience worse for our users because it increases the amount and/or value of sales we make, verified through A/B testing. Meanwhile ignoring or deprioritising legitimate issues because it can be very difficult to "prove" that it would increase KPIs.