Behavioral Effect of Metrics

15 points by restlessmedia 10 years ago | 2 comments

It is important to measure what you treasure.

However the concept of pairing metrics is equally important. Otherwise the power of what is being measured will become the entire focus.

Pairing metrics combine quantity with quality. Like speed of improvement with safety, or quantity of burgers processed with quality of the assembly process.

austinjp 10 years ago | |

I've not heard of pairing metrics before, thanks for mentioning this. It seems like a simple (and obvious in hindsight) way to mitigate the problems that come with focusing on single metrics.

Some brief Googling revealed the following from Marc Andreeson:

Andy Grove had the answer: For every metric, there should another “paired” metric that addresses adverse consequences of the first metric. [0]

Next question for me is, how does one robustly select and pair metrics?

There's a little more here: http://mattyford.com/blog/2014/6/11/paired-metrics

[0] http://pmarcatweetsasblogposts.tumblr.com/post/73631082205/m...