Lambda Land
3 hours ago
- Goodhart's Law states that when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.
- Only measure what you are comfortable turning into a target, as targets change incentives.
- Measuring easily quantifiable metrics like commits or lines of code can lead to perverse incentives and degrade quality.
- The author's personal anecdote shows how celebrating raw metrics (commits, PRs, lines of code) can be misleading and harmful.
- Avoid measuring metrics that are tempting to turn into targets; instead, focus on meaningful indicators.
- Choosing what to measure has consequences; be careful and consider the incentives created.