Tell me how I’m measured…and I’ll behave accordingly

re: Tell me how I’m measured…and I’ll behave accordingly

Danieln — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 21:31:50 GMT

This is great stuff! I would like to point out however, that you should be very careful when using measurements to control behaviour. Very often (and this isn’t fictitious) You may find that people will perform exactly so that they measure properly, often not willing to perform better, even finding shortcuts to attaining the correct numbers, however not really fixing problems. (e.g.:"Please reboot your computer. if the problem still occurs call back") This makes for a short call (Often a something being measured), but rebooting a computer in this day and age rarely fixes problems.

re: Tell me how I’m measured…and I’ll behave accordingly

Jason Week — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 18:13:02 GMT

Good feedback and examples. I agree that people can manipulate any measure they want. Measures cannot control behavior by themselves, but the "right" measures can provide behavior reinforcement. When working with measures (or policies, culture, and the like) you need to think of the behavior to be reinforced while also considering and eliminating the reinforcements for conflicting behaviors. As you've helped illustrate, identifying the right measures is not an easy task.

re: Tell me how I’m measured…and I’ll behave accordingly

John Bates — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 05:38:22 GMT

I'd reinforce what the previous commentors said about picking the right measures; sometimes "moving the goalposts" by changing the measures can alleviate some of this.

BTW: the linked table image may be better as a PDF, and some of the cell content is truncated.

MSCOM Service Management – How to Use Metrics to Transform the Business

Microsoft.com Operations — Wed, 23 May 2007 21:50:11 GMT

An example of a measured change In our first two articles we highlighted the importance of measurements