Why measuring effort instead of impact guarantees incentive misalignment
The earlier you measure in the chain from effort to impact, the easier it becomes to game the metric. Lines of code, pull requests, or hours worked are observable and easy to count—but also trivially manipulable. Impact and profitability are harder to attribute and distort, but require waiting longer to observe. Choose your measurement point deliberately: superficial analysis often reveals flaws without requiring systems thinking.
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