Metrics episode 3

Lately, I've read a couple of articles complaining that metrics are driving things inappropriately, either stating or implying that metrics should be abandoned.

It's pretty obvious (if you think about it) that measuring the wrong things is - at best - a pointless waste of effort, and potentially harmful if it leads things in the wrong directions, taking attention from the things that truly matter.  

Likewise, measuring the right things in the wrong way leads to disappointment and frustration.  

However, neither of those issues is a valid argument to stop measuring. They are good reasons to measure the right things competently, easier said than done maybe but surely better than the alternative.

I've already mentioned which are the right things to measure: the Things That Truly Matter. Of course that is context-dependent, and changes over time ... so one approach is to consider the organisation's long-term (strategic), mid-term (tactical) and short-term (operational) objectives. For bonus points, recognise that those are linked, not independent variables: operating activities support the achievement of tactical goals and strategic objectives.

Measuring things competently implies using the appropriate measurement approaches to gather, analyse, report, and most of all use metrics sensibly. A useful approach here is to work backwards along that sequence: how and what the metrics will ultimately be used for determines what needs to be reported (along with how, by whom, when and in what format), indicating the need for suitable statistics and commentary, hence a reasonable specific demand for raw data on the subject matter. 

OK, I'll leave it there for today. There's a chainsaw with my name on it, and a couple of trees in the wrong places.