Ports nuggets of wisdom into existing patterns

[spier]

We opted against creating a new pattern for this topic, and hence closed #501 without merging it. However the PR contain some nuggets of wisdom like the one below that we should port into other already existing patterns.

Negative consequences of metrics is a great thing to tackle. Thanks for writing this up. Gamification of metrics definitely leads to some strange (and sometimes unwanted) behaviors in organizations sometimes, i.e. "promotion driven development" as described in https://twitter.com/gergelyorosz/status/1442162670753431559?lang=en

Another lens to view this through, is that incentives, intentional or otherwise, almost always have second order effects that may be desirable or undesirable besides the intended consequences. I think Kent Beck's blog has some good writing about this, but I can't find a good reference online to share other than https://geekincentives.substack.com/p/the-geek-incentives-manifesto which is very brief.

I think it's important to note is that these unintended consequences can lead to negative outcomes in an organization even when the incentives had good intentions and the ones affected by them did as well.

Using the "weapon" phrasing may imply that bad outcomes are intended by bad actors, whereas I think in reality, bad actions are often the unintended consequences of well meaning people, or at least people with an average amount of healthy-self interest in advancing their career or project, but in an organization there are always competing projects and other peers seeking similar outcomes that need the same resources (money, time, attention, budget, etc.)

That's not to say that there are never bad actors, just that things actually can go wrong without requiring it as a precondition.

Originally posted by @ranton256 in https://github.com/InnerSourceCommons/InnerSourcePatterns/pull/501#discussion_r1049990252

[ranton256]

Is there a pattern or patterns where you think some of this would make sense to add?

[spier]

This here is a draft pattern where it could fit: https://github.com/InnerSourceCommons/InnerSourcePatterns/blob/main/patterns/1-initial/introducing-metrics-in-innersource.md

Possibly as a new sub-section called the "Dangers of Metrics" in the Solution section? :)

I wonder if there are any regular activities that one could do, to confirm whether the metrics that are being used are starting to trigger any unhealthy consequences?

[spier]

@ranton256 not sure what your availability is but if you want to turn this into a hacktoberfest contribution, we would certainly be happy to receive it :) ❤️