9…A PRACTICAL VIEW OF SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT METRICS
Measurement implies that the thing being measured is meaningful, and the software development team looks to those measurements for cues about what is important. Software developers interpret this information, and often change their behavior to deliver what they think the people directing the measurement want.
This effect shows itself in a number of ways—from telling managers what they think they want to hear when asked, “How is the project going?” to reporting sometimes more, sometimes fewer, hours than were actually worked, depending on whether they think working more hours than expected is a good thing (often the sign of a “hero culture”) or a bad thing (working extra hours is often the sign ...
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