Goodhart's Law

Goodhart’s Law comes from economics and is very relevant to software teams. For instance, a manager might set a target that “we must close 100 bug tickets this month.” Developers, feeling pressure, might start closing tickets that are not truly resolved or splitting a single bug into multiple tickets to inflate numbers.

The metric (tickets closed) goes up, but software quality might not. Making the metric a goal distorts the process, so it loses its correlation with actual success. This is why experienced leaders use metrics as indicators rather than targets, and always consider the broader context.

• If you set a particular metric as a goal (e.g., lines of code written, number of features closed), people will find ways to optimize for that metric.
• Metrics are proxies for what you value (productivity, quality, etc.). Once they're targets, people meet the metric even if it undermines the original intent.
• Metrics are useful for insight, but they must be used in context and balanced with qualitative judgment.
• Combine multiple metrics to avoid a singular focus that can be gamed.