Knowledge Base · Measurement
"What gets measured gets managed": is that actually true?
Partly. The chapter says the saying is a cliché, but it is true that tracking something makes people pay attention to it and look for ways to improve it. It does not follow that any number deserves managing. Teams can drown in meaningless metrics, or chase a vanity metric that makes them look good while customers struggle.
Chapter 5 treats the saying as broadly true, with a sharp condition attached. When you start tracking something, you start paying attention to it, and you start looking for ways to improve it. The author learned the cost of not tracking early in his career: his team was busy and the feedback was positive, but when his director asked for a report on the team's KPIs, he had no good answer. Hard work and good intentions were not enough, because he could not demonstrate the impact.
The condition is that you measure the right things. The goal is not to measure everything. The chapter warns against teams getting bogged down in a sea of meaningless metrics, creating a lot of work without generating any real insight. The goal is to measure what matters, meaning the few indicators tied to your most important goals.
There is a second warning. What you measure is what you will get, so a badly chosen metric can pull a team in the wrong direction. A team that counts clicks will produce clicks, even if customers cannot complete the task they came to do. Measurement, in the chapter's closing words, is not about control. It is about giving the team information it can act on.
Related questions
- What is a KPI, and how do I choose the right ones?
- Why is celebrating too early dangerous?
- How do I know whether an improvement actually worked?
Source: Continuous Improvement in the Workplace, Ch. 5 (Measuring Success and Ensuring Sustainability).