Summary: The founder of 37signals reflects on the luxury of not relying on metrics to guide the company’s direction for the past 20 years. While acknowledging the usefulness of metrics, he highlights the dangers of being data-obsessed and explains that he finds half the charm in making something lies in letting his fingers drive the direction without needing to rationalize every call with a depth of data. He asserts that metrics are downstream from simply making something people want to buy and that steering a company based on a constellation of derivative metrics can lead to questionable decisions and short-term thinking.
in the end, even the most sophisticated KPIs all inevitably serve the simplest calculations: Are we making money? Is it enough? You don’t need a degree in statistics to determine that. (View Highlight)
The greatest myth in management is that you can’t manage what you don’t measure. It’s hot or cold outside regardless of how many digits of precision your thermometer is showing. (View Highlight)
A place where eking out another percentage point or five, to make the next quarter look right, trumps everything else. That’s an environment for questionable decisions and short-term thinking. (View Highlight)
Note: What’s the quarterly horizon defense? I have heard a good defense somewhere before - maybe Joe Polish