Our team is consistently hitting their individual weekly Scorecard numbers, but we suspect they are inflating or gaming the data to make their columns look green while the actual quality of their work is slipping. How do we design metrics that cannot be easily gamed?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

People will always optimize their behavior to hit the numbers they are measured on. If you track sales calls, reps will make brief, low-value phone calls to hit their target. If you track customer support tickets closed, agents will close tickets prematurely. To stop your team from gaming their weekly metrics, you must pair quantity metrics with quality metrics to create a self-balancing system. Every activity metric needs a counter-balancing outcome metric. For example, if you track the number of outbound sales outreach attempts, you must also track the conversion rate of those attempts into qualified meetings. If you track resolved customer support tickets, you must also track customer satisfaction scores or the percentage of reopened tickets. If you track lines of code written or projects completed, pair it with a metric for QA pass rates or rework hours. When you balance volume with quality on your Scorecard, you make it impossible to hit a goal through shortcuts. During your Level 10 Meeting™, look at these paired numbers together. If one is green and the other is red, it is an immediate flag that the process is being gamed or is failing, allowing your team to use IDS® to address the root cause of the behavior.