Nicely provocative and succinct take on a very complex subject. I think that can be a positive or negative signal, depending on how people are using the quantitative:
Good: If those %s are leading indicators as part of a continually monitored system (say, OKRs), they are a great way of answering the question - e.g. - are we working to get our tech debt under control? can be answered with we're spending 10% of our time on tech debt - and we believe this will lead to <faster deployments, more stable velocity, more time to innovate, better dev exp, etc.> as your lagging indicators.
Bad: The measure is an example of substitution principle - essentially, if the question is too difficult to answer, we substitute an easier one.
The trick, I think, is interrogating the system to understand how much is good vs bad in the intent and implementation
Nicely provocative and succinct take on a very complex subject. I think that can be a positive or negative signal, depending on how people are using the quantitative:
Good: If those %s are leading indicators as part of a continually monitored system (say, OKRs), they are a great way of answering the question - e.g. - are we working to get our tech debt under control? can be answered with we're spending 10% of our time on tech debt - and we believe this will lead to <faster deployments, more stable velocity, more time to innovate, better dev exp, etc.> as your lagging indicators.
Bad: The measure is an example of substitution principle - essentially, if the question is too difficult to answer, we substitute an easier one.
The trick, I think, is interrogating the system to understand how much is good vs bad in the intent and implementation
Great comment!