Comment by zeroxfe
5 years ago
So, what would you do differently? Say you run an organization with 200 engineers all with different levels of skill. You have a budget, maybe a year of runway, and a set of deliverables.
How would you, as a leader, keep track of how your organization is running?
The Streetlight effect [0]. Just because you think that it is the only place that you can see anything doesn’t mean that it is meaningful to look there. A number with high precision doesn’t mean it will tell you anything meaningful. Some problems just don’t have any easy solutions.
So in your example, you just have to rely on the judgement of all your professional project leaders and architects and what they tell you.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetlight_effect
By implementing a systems solution similar to Stafford Beer's VSM (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viable_system_model). Or to ovrrsimplify the idea, self-managing teams which integrate with their environment for feedback and management for direction (which I believe is the agile/lean practices done properly).
The specific approach to metrics I was referencing as being better is known in cybernetics as an algedonic alert. It doesn't seek or claim to provide information, it only rings the bell of "investigate this area", like a CloudWatch alert for your organisation.
Using metrics to make decisions is the mistake in my mind.