About

Fifty notes on measuring productivity, written for whoever has to report on it.

The position

Productivity is a ratio, and both halves are usually measured badly.

Any measure that becomes a target stops describing the work. That is a prediction rather than a caution, and the protection is a counterweight.

Most professional work has no comparable unit, and the honest response is to measure flow, rework and waiting rather than to invent one.

And most productivity problems are not about people.

Operations managers, team leaders, finance and anybody asked to produce productivity figures and uneasy about what they mean.

Product and vendor names.

Average improvement figures, which come from studies commissioned by sellers.

And any argument against measurement itself. The argument is against bad measurement.

This address previously carried a book website, which is no longer here. There is a page about that.