"To measure is to know."
“If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it.”
“When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind.”1
Lord Kelvin’s words are just too kind as for the faulty habit to discuss quantitative information in “a meagre and unsatisfactory” manner. Common examples:
“We have made a good progress…”
(From what, how, over which period, what “progressed”, where are we now compared with expected gains so far?)“We had nice accomplishments…”
(What is ‘nice’? On which scale? What is the contribution of these to our delivery?)“We deliver in good quality…”
(Crazy laughter emanates from bugs’ hellish kitchens…)
As many understand, presenting [primarily] project information without actual measurement references is bad, so—numbers are brought to the table; but, alas, these provide (?) a cover to “…a meagre and unsatisfactory…[knowledge]…”…
Statistics malpractice, with percentage values as the king, of course; e.g.—
“95% of my team members had completed their assignments…”
(Your team has 13 members; what…whaa…?!)When mere numbers do not provide enough obfuscation—chart the data!
(Ensure the absence of units of measurement, manipulate axes to exaggerate or diminish unwanted proportions, use the ‘wrong’ chart for the data type…)Rely on and debate in detail on ambiguous measures, such as - - Story Points2, poorly managed or maintained, referenced, understood, or used make an excellent conveyor to useless algebra. So much, that one may agree with Ron Jeffries’ observation on Story points:
“I certainly deplore their misuse;
I think using them to predict “when we’ll be done” is at best a weak idea;
I think tracking how actuals compare with estimates is at best wasteful;
I think comparing teams on quality of estimates or velocity is harmful.”“I do think that they are frequently misused…”
Such attitude is a slippery, deteriorating road to active, gooey, and horrendous Bullshit culture3.
Related posts:
In praise of Lord Kelvin, Physics World, 17.12.2007.
This wide topic is discussed in other posts on this channel; stay tuned for updates.
This is also a wide topic, discussed in other posts on this channel; stay tuned for updates.
Basic reference is to Carl T. Bergstrom and Jevin West’s precious contribution via their Calling Bullshit opus.