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Targets Corrupt Their Metrics
Leadership / Principles · Added Apr 2026
The moment a measure becomes a target, it stops being a good measure.
The Idea
Known as Goodhart's Law: "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."
A metric is useful as a signal — a way of observing what's happening. The instant you tie rewards, promotions, or punishment to it, people start optimising the number directly. The signal degrades. What you're measuring is no longer reality; it's people's response to being measured.
Why It Matters
- Numbers can be gamed. Reality cannot. The gap between them widens the harder you push.
- Good people start doing bad work. Not because they're dishonest, but because the system rewards it.
- You lose your ability to see clearly. The metric you used to understand the team is now noise.
How to Apply
- Use metrics to ask questions, not assign verdicts. A drop in deploy frequency is a prompt to investigate, not a stick to hit someone with.
- Watch a basket of indicators, not one. Single-metric targets are the easiest to game.
- Pair every output metric with a quality metric. Tickets closed alongside bug reopen rate. Velocity alongside defect rate.
- Change what you measure periodically. Once a metric becomes the target everyone optimises for, it's already corrupted.
- Reward judgement, not numbers. Promote the people doing the right work, not the ones with the best dashboard.
The Trap
Leaders reach for hard metrics because soft judgement feels unfair or arbitrary. So they pick a number — lines of code, story points, NPS, OKR completion — and tie it to consequences. Within a quarter, the number goes up and the underlying thing gets worse. Then they pick a new number. The cycle never ends until you accept that managing humans requires judgement, not just measurement.
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