The Good and Bad of Choosing Measurements - Traps and Opportunities of Measuring What Matters

Developer Tea

In this episode, I dive into the management mantra that "what is measured is managed" and explain why this simple assertion often leads to a complex trap. We discuss why the act of measuring team productivity is never neutral—it's an intervention that immediately changes behavior, often resulting in unintended consequences like gaming the metrics. We'll explore how to collaborate with your team to find measurements that truly drive desired behaviors.

• Understand why the phrase "what is measured is managed" means that measuring something triggers management of that thing, in varying degrees.
• Learn why the act of measuring something is an intervention, especially when done with the intent of turning it into a target (e.g., increasing PRs or decreasing bugs), and how this action is shown to change behaviors around the thing being measured.
• Discover how measurement can lead to unintended consequences, such as when tracking velocity via story points causes team members to inflate or deflate their estimates, making the measurement itself less meaningful.
• Explore why giving ownership of metrics to the people acting to improve them makes sense, and how you can collaborate with your team to determine what kinds of measurements should be taken.
• Recognize that if you want something to survive—such as paying down tech debt—you must feed it with time, resources, and attention, ensuring your actions line up with what you claim to care about.
• Understand that since your calendar and dashboards will get crowded if you measure everything, the exercise of choosing metrics is as much about accepting that you have to choose what you will actively manage and invest in.

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