[Rancid]

Most people use metrics as a substitute for thinking. They just flash up a powerpoint slide with another graph or bar chart on it, printed in lots of bright colours, as ‘proof’ that their targets are the right ones. As someone or other once said, there are three kinds of lies - lies, damn lies, and statistics. Lol.

True... true...

I've been in meetings where someone say's "Just throw up some metrics in the presentation and hand wave it."

Also reminds me, sometimes you do have the right metrics, but what happens next is that the assumed/presumed/confirmed conditions that make those metrics valuable changes without any one noticing. What you thought were the right metrics to chase have evolved into the wrong metrics. That, or goals/values/strategies are changed, and the metrics are not changed to reflect that.