Metrics Measure Maintenance Not Creation
🌿 Budding ·
Metrics measure maintenance, not creation.
In tech and knowledge work, the quantifiable information that survives the reporting chain tracks what keeps the lights on — uptime, velocity, cost, headcount. Not what makes the company thrive and break new ground. Innovation, architectural quality, team morale, the soundness of an abstraction — none of these fit in a spreadsheet. The things that are measurable are not the things that matter most. The C-suite sees a dashboard of operational health and mistakes it for a picture of the company.