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bryanrasmussentoday at 8:22 AM1 replyview on HN

So following Drucker would be the cause of a lot of "every metric becomes a target" in management?


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asplaketoday at 9:00 AM

Obviously the truth is messier than that, and it's worth noting that Drucker later recognised the toxicity of Management by Objectives and disavowed it. Quite a bit of OKR literature is devoted to avoiding it becoming its progenitor, MBO.

Worth adding that Deming (after Shewhart) recognised two kinds of variation: special cause (specific the work item in question) and common cause (an artifact of the process). That knowledge work involves a lot more of the former than does manufacturing does not excuse inattention to the latter.

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