Always Measure Two Things

Be careful what you measure. You are going to get exactly that. You remember “Dieselgate,” where Volkswagen installed software in their cars to cheat on emissions tests. Samsung was just caught doing the same thing, programming their TVs to recognize a typical testing scenario and boosting brightness during the test.

A single measurement is easy to cheat on. If anything depends on that measure – bonuses, promotions, reputation – somebody is going to cheat sooner or later.

That’s why every measurement needs a counter-measure. Don’t just measure “Time to close support ticket.” I’ve been working with vendors who clearly had that measure as their main target, as have most people in IT. If you also measure customer satisfaction, it becomes much hard to game the metrics.

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