@autonomousapps @hugo @donaldball @norootcause Tom DeMarco, author of 'Controlling Software Projects: Management, Measurement, and Estimation', 1982, famously said in the first line of the book: "You can’t control what you can’t measure".
In 2009, nearly forty years later, he admits he was wrong. In an article in the journal IEEE Software entitled "Software engineering: An Idea Whose Time Has Come and Gone?" DeMarco recanted, saying "In
my reflective mood, I’m wondering, was its advice correct at the time, is it still relevant, and do I still believe that metrics are a must for any successful software development effort? My answers are no, no, and no."
https://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/teaching/172/resources/demarco-on-se.pdf

@autonomousapps @hugo @donaldball @norootcause I presented about this numerous times in the 2010s "The Dark Side of Metrics".
The OG quote, that Deming was disagreeing with, was Lord Kelvin, who said "I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, **your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind**; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science, whatever the matter may be."

This is now mounted on the guest room door. Permanently. YOU GOTTA ACT RIGHT