Systems choose metrics that make them look good.

· Bits and Bobs 7/14/25
  • Systems choose metrics that make them look good.
    • The choice of metrics is endogenous to the system.
    • If every update to the manager the team chooses different metrics to highlight, even if they're "doing well as reported by the metrics" they're actually doing poorly.
    • Consistent progress on consistent metrics shows that things are going well.
      • Or at least, momentum on consistent metrics are harder to fake.
    • At a certain point however the metric decoheres from success and becomes an accidental end in and of itself.
    • At the beginning you want a consistent metric; at the end that's dangerous.