Indicator

Fleeting

Measure of something you deem important enough, along with threshold giving a coarse scale (like A to E) of how well the thing is going (A for “could not be better” to E for “could not be worse”).

never try to make the indicator pass

Remember that indicators are a reflect of the measure and give a statement about some state. If the indicator says things are bad, you should worry about how to make the thing better, not about how to make the indicator pass again. When the state becomes good again, the indicator should reflect this.

Hence, this is an inverse problem, where you measure the consequences and are actually interested in the causes. So keep in mind the Goodhart’s law and strive to understand what is wrong that make the indicator fail and fix it. Or even fix the indicator if need be. But by all mean, never try to make the indicator pass.

Notes linking here

• code coverage
• how you should use indicators?
• indicator and intellectual honesty
• is it ok to let the CI fail and not do anything about it?

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