> if you want to improve some process, you have to ignore the goal (target)
This is the whole message of Goodhart's Law. Once you set a target, people will naturally aim for it. If you have to ignore the target or even not have one then you are saying Goodhart's Law is useful, which counters his narrative. The point of the measure should be to detect anomalies in the system, not drive targets or goals.
If you measure widgets per week, you can look back at the end of each week and ask the questions:
* Why did we produce 10% more widgets this week than our 6 week rolling average?
* Why did we produce 5% less widgets this week than our 6 week rolling average?
* Is there anything we can easily do to increase the amount of widgets we produce next week?
None of these questions have a target. They are process oriented. We aren't saying what the rolling average must be, we are using it to detect variance. Or, we are investigating to see if we can produce positive variance. What we try might fail and the variance is negative but then we revert our process. Or it is positive and we have improved our process. Rinse and repeat
This is the whole message of Goodhart's Law. Once you set a target, people will naturally aim for it. If you have to ignore the target or even not have one then you are saying Goodhart's Law is useful, which counters his narrative. The point of the measure should be to detect anomalies in the system, not drive targets or goals.
If you measure widgets per week, you can look back at the end of each week and ask the questions: * Why did we produce 10% more widgets this week than our 6 week rolling average? * Why did we produce 5% less widgets this week than our 6 week rolling average? * Is there anything we can easily do to increase the amount of widgets we produce next week?
None of these questions have a target. They are process oriented. We aren't saying what the rolling average must be, we are using it to detect variance. Or, we are investigating to see if we can produce positive variance. What we try might fail and the variance is negative but then we revert our process. Or it is positive and we have improved our process. Rinse and repeat