Behold and beware of the games you play
Pre-s: I have a limited number of 1 Hour Strategy Session slots this summer. One hour of pure focus where we strategy, design, and creatively engage your data challenges.
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Behold! Designing success metrics for your team can unlock a new level of energy, clarity, and confidence for your team.
Beware! Success metrics are the primary way your team members and organization is incentivized. Without proper care, and eyes wide open, your metrics could introduce toxic dynamics on your team.
Incentives are all about what people optimize for.
Salespeople on a commission plan optimize for closing the most deals to increase their commission.
Customer Support people measured on how many support cases they close will optimize for speedy resolutions.
Software Engineers who are measured on how many commits they make each sprint will optimize for smaller, more frequent commits regardless of how it impacts code quality or processes.
Your success metric will be gamed. That’s what people do when they are incentivized to optimize for something. You can’t change that.
What can you control?
Make sure your success metric is something you want them to game.
Don’t hate the game. Play it.
I’m here,
Sawyer
