We suspect our service desk technicians are cherry-picking easy tickets at the end of the week just to hit their closed-ticket target on our scorecard. How do we design metrics that prevent team members from gaming their individual measurables?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When team members game their numbers, it is usually because you are measuring activity in isolation without measuring the quality or outcome of that activity. If your service technicians are cherry-picking easy tickets to hit a volume metric, your scorecard is missing a balancing metric. This is where you need to look at the relationship between different numbers to maintain operational integrity.

To fix this, pair your volume metric with an efficiency or quality metric. For example, do not just track tickets closed per week. Track tickets closed per week alongside average ticket resolution time and customer satisfaction ratings. If a technician closes forty simple tickets but their average resolution time for complex issues spikes or their satisfaction score drops, the gaming becomes immediately visible on the scorecard.

You must also ensure that every employee truly GWC™, or Gets, Wants, and has the Capacity to do, their seat. If they feel forced to meet an unrealistic quota just to keep their job, gaming is a survival mechanism. Have an honest conversation outside of your Level 10 Meeting™ about why they feel the need to manipulate the data. Adjust the targets if they are genuinely unrealistic, but hold the line on the paired metrics. When you measure both speed and quality, gaming the system becomes functionally impossible.