{"id":162,"date":"2014-07-11T14:53:00","date_gmt":"2014-07-11T19:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.johnelrick.com\/blog\/?p=162"},"modified":"2014-07-11T14:53:00","modified_gmt":"2014-07-11T19:53:00","slug":"secrets-of-metrics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnelrick.com\/?p=162","title":{"rendered":"Secrets of metrics"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading Time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span><p>In a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.satisfice.com\/blog\/archives\/1440\">blog post<\/a>, James Bach discusses the virtues of dumping Key Performance Indicators (KPI&#8217;s). It&#8217;s a shock to think that maybe we should get rid of quantitative metrics, however, there is a sound argument behind the idea.<\/p>\n<p>If you think about it carefully enough, quantitative metrics serve two purposes:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Snapshots<\/li>\n<li>Objectifying reality<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h2>Snapshots<\/h2>\n<p>As an experienced\u00a0software performance optimizer, I can attest to the value of snapshots. Without objective metrics there is no way to narrow down what is consuming time in a software system. However, there are a couple of important points to remember about capturing metrics in software development &#8212; and by extrapolation the real world.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Capturing good metrics adds a <em>lot<\/em> of overhead, especially to repetitive operations.<\/li>\n<li>If you&#8217;re not adding a lot of overhead, you&#8217;re not capturing good metrics.<\/li>\n<li>Once you&#8217;ve optimized the processes, you need to get rid of the overhead that is capturing the metrics.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Objectifying reality<\/h2>\n<p>This is a fancy term for vanity metrics. The problem with metrics is two fold: <em>you can only manage what you measure<\/em> and <em>when you measure, that&#8217;s what you get &#8212; whether or not you wanted it<\/em>. Usually, you discover that what you are measuring isn&#8217;t what you really want. That leads to<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_163\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-163\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.johnelrick.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/TestsICanTakeTests.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-163 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/www.johnelrick.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/TestsICanTakeTests-300x262.jpg\" alt=\"TestsICanTakeTests\" width=\"300\" height=\"262\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-163\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">https:\/\/twitter.com\/CharlesM_S\/status\/479722716216324097?utm_source=fb&amp;utm_medium=fb&amp;utm_campaign=SirKenRobinson&amp;utm_content=479731710964142081<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In Bach&#8217;s words<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"color: #333333;\">Gather relevant evidence through testing and other means. Then discuss that evidence.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #333333;\">That\u2019s how it works for us. That\u2019s how it works for publishers. That\u2019s how it works for almost everything.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<h2>In conclusion<\/h2>\n<p>I&#8217;m not against KPI&#8217;s and metrics in and of themselves. I&#8217;m opposed to blindly relying upon metrics to replace qualitative discussions. Numbers are a hollow model of reality and are too easy to use to justify distortions. Until you really understand what the number means, it&#8217;s a mistake to put too much faith into it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading Time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span>In a blog post, James Bach discusses the virtues of dumping Key Performance Indicators (KPI&#8217;s). It&#8217;s a shock to think that maybe we should get rid of quantitative metrics, however, there is a sound argument behind the idea. If you think about it carefully enough, quantitative metrics serve two purposes: Snapshots Objectifying reality Snapshots As &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/johnelrick.com\/?p=162\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Secrets of metrics&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-goal-setting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnelrick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnelrick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnelrick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnelrick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnelrick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/johnelrick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnelrick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnelrick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnelrick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}