Software Process Improvement: What gets measured gets done

A software quality management system (QMS) has been designed in a democratic fashion by programmers and has been approved by management. In order to motivate the programmers in following their own standards, measurement feedback is used for creating social pressure (peer pressure and management pressure). In nine out of ten cases this approach has been successful. Could the failure of the tenth case be an indication of the statement “what gets measured gets done” not being as obviously true as it is sometimes assumed to be in management literature? Trying to investigate this by reflecting on seven years of conversations with programmers and managers, various explanations are presented. Few seem to have any validity. The most likely explanation seems to be that “what gets measured gets done” is a statement about group behaviour. When it comes to individuals or very small groups, special predicaments may make behaviour less predictable. The theoretical insights for QMS design, provided by this case study, is that the “what gets measured gets done” design approach might prove more efficient if one manages to conceptualize lumps of individuals as self-managing teams or groups.