Measurement and Metrics Terms You Should Know
Metrics vs KPIs: Metrics measure anything; KPIs measure what matters for goals. Leading indicators predict future; lagging indicators show past results.
February 2026
How Goodhart's Law Breaks Metrics
When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. People optimize for metrics, not goals, creating distortion and gaming.
KPIs Explained Without Buzzwords
KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) are the few metrics that actually matter for your goals. Not all metrics are KPIs—only those that drive real decisions.
Vanity Metrics vs Meaningful Metrics
Vanity metrics look impressive but don't drive decisions: total users, page views. Meaningful metrics change behavior: active users, retention, revenue.
Quantitative vs Qualitative Metrics
Quantitative metrics measure numbers like revenue and time. Qualitative metrics assess quality like feedback and satisfaction. Both are needed together.
Why Measurement Changes Behavior
What gets measured gets optimized. Measurement creates visibility, accountability, and focuschanging behavior whether intended or not.
What Should Be Measured and Why
Measure what drives outcomes, not what's easy to measure. Focus on outcomes over activities, and use leading indicators to predict future results.
October 2025
Project Metrics Explained
Project metrics: velocity measuring work completed per sprint, burn rate tracking budget consumed, cycle time from idea to delivery, and quality indicators.
September 2025
AI Systems for Measurement and Insights
AI measurement ideas: anomaly detector flagging unusual patterns, trend identifier detecting changes early, and correlation finder revealing relationships.
August 2025
Measurement and Metrics Problems
Measurement problems: measuring easy metrics instead of important ones like lines of code versus value, and Goodhart's Law where metrics become gamed goals.
July 2025
How Metrics and Measurement Work
Metrics quantify performance. They create visibility, enable improvement through tracking, establish accountability, and drive behavior toward outcomes.
Metrics That Destroyed Performance: Case Studies
UK hospitals held patients in ambulances to meet four-hour emergency room targets. Teaching to test scores narrowed education focus.
Metrics Design Checklist
Metrics design checklist: Is it aligned with goals? Actionable and influenceable? Gameable by cheating? Leading or lagging indicator? Simple to understand?
Qualitative vs Quantitative Metrics
Quantitative metrics use numbers that are scalable and objective but miss context. Qualitative metrics use stories rich in context but subjective.
June 2025
Intellectual History of Metrics
Scientific management quantified work. Accounting standardized financial measurement. Modern analytics expanded to all aspects of organizational performance.
Step-by-Step: Designing Effective Metrics
Keep simple with three to five key metrics. Make actionable so measurement drives improvement. Align with goals avoiding distortion.
January 2025
The Implicit Association Test: Measuring the Bias We Don't Know We Have — and Its Discontents
Anthony Greenwald, Debbie McGhee, and Jordan Schwartz's 1998 paper introduced a test that could measure racial bias in milliseconds. You sort words into categories while a clock measures how long each sorting decision takes. When 'Black' and 'bad' share a response key, people who harbor implicit racial bias are slower than when 'Black' and 'good' share a key. The difference in milliseconds — your D-score — became the most debated measure in psychology. What it measures, whether it predicts discrimination, and whether changing it changes anything remain unresolved.
December 2023
Campbell's Law: Why Measuring Performance Corrupts It
Campbell's Law states that the more a quantitative measure is used for high-stakes decisions, the more it corrupts the process it was meant to monitor. A principle that explains teaching to the test, metrics gaming, and the collapse of useful indicators.