“Gaming the numbers” happens when people respond rationally to poorly designed targets, incentives, and performance metrics. These posts explore how fear, quotas, and simplistic scorecards lead people to manipulate data, hide problems, or optimize appearances instead of improving the system.
Drawing on examples from healthcare, government, finance, sports, and everyday work, this archive reflects a core Lean lesson: when metrics are misused, the system teaches people to game the numbers rather than fix the work. Real improvement requires better measures, better leadership, and less blame.
Blundering hospitals ‘kill 40,000 a year’ – Britain – Times Online: Ah, gaming the numbers… everyone’s favorite pastime. It certainly is here in the State, even though I have my second story of the year related to gaming the numbers…
Whistleblower says defects hidden at Toyota-GM Calif. plant Ironically enough, while on the topic of not counting defects (the TSA), this disturbing story was in the Detroit News today. A 23-year employee, a quality inspector, has filed a lawsuit claiming…
Freedom from Command & Control: Rethinking Management for Lean Service Here is a fascinating post from John Seddon at his website www.lean-service.com (link is dead) about ambulances “making their numbers”: The stupidity of measuring the eight-minute response time has been…
Freakonomics: Official Site I know this wouldn’t count as “leisure reading” for many folks, but I’m reading (and very much enjoying) the book Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything. I’m a nerd, I read books like…
Back to my original post about gaming the system, there are three ways people can respond to pressure to improve: I got an email from an old friend — I’ll keep his name, company, and industry confidential, but he said…
GM Got Gamed (Or, How to Fudge Your Production Numbers to Keep the Boss Happy) TL;DR: At a GM engine plant, fear-based leadership pushed supervisors to falsify production data to avoid punishment. The numbers looked good, but real problems stayed…
A somewhat recent experience prompted me to re-read portions of Donald Wheeler’s outstanding book, Understanding Variation: The Key to Managing Chaos, with its section on the three ways people can improve a metric or a target (he gives credit to…
