Measuring and managing performance in organizations

What Hacker News says

1. KingOfCodersAug 2023
   "Measuring and Managing Performance in Organizations" should be a must-read for everyone tinkering with measuring, and how this has second order effects.

   Too many companies focus on productivity and throughput instead of impact (of their features). So they produce bad features faster and faster.

   thread
2. pjmorrisJan 2023
   In many years I haven't seen a better study of the issues in measuring anyone's performance than 'Measuring and Managing Performance in Organizations', Robert Austin.

   One key difference is between informational metrics (e.g. using a scale to guide your own planning about diet and exercise) and motivational metrics (e.g. reporting your weight and being subject to weight loss targets associated with carrots and sticks.) Very different dynamics, most of which are harmful.

   Show morethread
3. jacques_chesterApr 2019
   It's time again for me to recommend Measuring and Managing Performance in Organizations by Austin[0].

   Don't let the underwhelming title fool you: it's largely a book on why it can't be done. Austin takes classical principal-agent models and extends it to add a third participant: the client. He then shows that difficult-to-observe work at first improves and then worsens under any metrics regime.

   No single metric can be found that will give the desired performance. The basket of metrics that can successfully create the desired outcome is one where the principal has total visibility into the agent's work -- which contradicts the original problem of difficult-to-observe work (ie, anything requiring skill).

   [0] http://www.dorsethouse.com/books/mmpo.html

   Show morethread
4. _CodemonkeyismApr 2019
   Required reading

   "Measuring and Managing Performance in Organizations"

   Has a lot of information about how people react and adapt to setting KPIs, aka "gaming the system".

   thread
5. coverclockFeb 2019
   "Measuring and Managing Performance in Organizations" by Robert D. Austin, Dorset House, 1996. Changed my entire world view. The basic idea - which Austin arrives at using an offshoot of game theory - is that all incentive systems will be gamed by the people to which they are applied, and there is no way around it.
   thread
6. jacques_chesterFeb 2019
   I generally take the view that authors have the best insight on their intention, so I apologise for my misreading.

   > I find pretty big differences in code that's written to meet the lowest bar of "just pass the tests" vs code that's written with the intent of keeping its state space small, methods tidy, and overall complexity limited.

   I think maybe this is where the misunderstanding arises. I'm used to TDD which amongst other things places pressure on the codebase to remain testable. The things that make code testable also, roughly speaking, make it reusable as well (test code is just code, after all). But more important than any one practice or tool is people just giving a damn about doing the work well.

   This might be an example of Goodhart's Law: if someone throws a test suite over a wall[^] and says "here, make these pass or you're outta here", then the motivation to cut corners is going to be intense. Attempts to create control loops over humans that rely on mechanical behaviour by humans tend to fail. Steering wheels don't have families and mortgages, wing flaps aren't thinking about their next promotion.

   The best discussion I've read about the problems of using measurements and targets to control (in the engineering sense) skilled workers is Measuring and Managing Performance in Organizations by Robert D. Austin. He elegantly demonstrates that the less directly-observable the work, the more destructive attempts to externally control it are. Which fits with my updated understanding of what you intended to say.

   [^] this doesn't have to be a current wall, either. It can be the wall of elapsed time: the flaky tests of yesteryear can be a very particular kind of curse.

   Show morethread