
Behavioral Effect of Metrics - restlessmedia
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?BehavioralEffectOfMetrics
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verticalflight
It is important to measure what you treasure.

However the concept of pairing metrics is equally important. Otherwise the
power of what is being measured will become the entire focus.

Pairing metrics combine quantity with quality. Like speed of improvement with
safety, or quantity of burgers processed with quality of the assembly process.

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austinjp
I've not heard of pairing metrics before, thanks for mentioning this. It seems
like a simple (and obvious in hindsight) way to mitigate the problems that
come with focusing on single metrics.

Some brief Googling revealed the following from Marc Andreeson:

Andy Grove had the answer: For every metric, there should another “paired”
metric that addresses adverse consequences of the first metric. [0]

Next question for me is, how does one robustly select and pair metrics?

There's a little more here: [http://mattyford.com/blog/2014/6/11/paired-
metrics](http://mattyford.com/blog/2014/6/11/paired-metrics)

[0]
[http://pmarcatweetsasblogposts.tumblr.com/post/73631082205/m...](http://pmarcatweetsasblogposts.tumblr.com/post/73631082205/measure-
performance-with-paired-metrics-for-best)

