V.F. Ridgeway said something close to this: "Even where performance measures are instituted purely for purposes of information, they are probably interpreted as definitions of the important aspects of that job or activity and hence have important implications for the motivation of behavior."
Once you set any kind of metrics, you message that the things you are measuring are what matter, and your people will respond accordingly. If that metric diverges in any way from the thing you really want to achieve -- and they almost always must -- then you'll be driving people to do the wrong thing. The only solution I've found is to adjust metrics over time as the situation evolves. The metric you might use when starting a "bug reduction" initiative (for example) might not make sense once you've addressed the "low hanging fruit" and need to move on to more nuanced problems. That runs headlong into most current management practices, that dictate we should be using the same measures over long periods of time.
V.F. Ridgeway said something close to this: "Even where performance measures are instituted purely for purposes of information, they are probably interpreted as definitions of the important aspects of that job or activity and hence have important implications for the motivation of behavior."
Once you set any kind of metrics, you message that the things you are measuring are what matter, and your people will respond accordingly. If that metric diverges in any way from the thing you really want to achieve -- and they almost always must -- then you'll be driving people to do the wrong thing. The only solution I've found is to adjust metrics over time as the situation evolves. The metric you might use when starting a "bug reduction" initiative (for example) might not make sense once you've addressed the "low hanging fruit" and need to move on to more nuanced problems. That runs headlong into most current management practices, that dictate we should be using the same measures over long periods of time.