Have you witnessed or experienced the effects of Goodhart’s Law in Agile delivery—such as point inflation or metric gaming—in your own teams or organizations? How did it impact trust, planning, or ou
Stelian ROMANProject Manager| MicroSafetyCarlingford, New South Wales, Australia
In the pursuit of productivity and predictability, organizations often turn to metrics to track progress and drive improvement. In Agile software delivery, measures like story points and velocity have become ubiquitous tools for estimation and forecasting. Yet, as the British economist Charles Goodhart famously observed, “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” This principle—known as Goodhart’s Law—captures a dangerous dynamic: when management fixates on metrics as ends in themselves, teams adapt their behaviour to meet the numbers, often at the expense of genuine progress and transparency. This blog post explores how Goodhart’s Law manifests in Agile delivery, why it leads teams to inflate point sizing, and what organizations can do to foster healthier measurement cultures.
Luis BrancoCEO| Business Insight, Consultores de Gestão, LdªCarcavelos, Lisboa, Portugal
One of the most important implications of Goodhart’s Law is that every measurement system is also an incentive system. Once metrics become targets, organizations often begin optimizing indicators rather than the reality those indicators were designed to represent.
The greatest loss is not the metric itself, but the gradual erosion of trust in the information used for planning, forecasting and decision-making. When that happens, apparent progress can easily be mistaken for real progress.
A valuable reminder that effective metrics should improve understanding of reality, not replace it. Saving Changes...
Program Manager| HARPER SRLSanto Domingo / Distrito Nacional, Dominican Republic
The impact was usually reduced transparency. Teams became more focused on improving the metric than improving delivery outcomes, which made forecasting and planning less reliable over time.
What worked best was treating metrics as conversation starters rather than targets, and evaluating them alongside quality, value delivered, and stakeholder outcomes.
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1 reply by Stelian ROMAN
Jun 16, 2026 8:17 PM
Stelian ROMAN
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Lissette Indhira Pimentel Sosa "treating metrics as conversation starters" it's a good option, if the conversation is not recorded to become evidence for decisions and actions.
Saving Changes...
Stelian ROMANProject Manager| MicroSafetyCarlingford, New South Wales, Australia
Stelian ROMANProject Manager| MicroSafetyCarlingford, New South Wales, Australia
Jun 16, 2026 1:05 PM
Replying to Lissette Indhira Pimentel Sosa
...
The impact was usually reduced transparency. Teams became more focused on improving the metric than improving delivery outcomes, which made forecasting and planning less reliable over time.
What worked best was treating metrics as conversation starters rather than targets, and evaluating them alongside quality, value delivered, and stakeholder outcomes.
Lissette Indhira Pimentel Sosa "treating metrics as conversation starters" it's a good option, if the conversation is not recorded to become evidence for decisions and actions. Saving Changes...
Ming YeungAdjunct Professor| George Brown Polytechnic/Fanshawe College/Humber PolytechnicToronto, Ontario, Canada
Dan, I have seen Goodhart’s Law play out in Agile environments more times than I’d like to admit, and the pattern is remarkably consistent. The moment leadership starts treating story points or velocity as performance targets rather than planning tools, the behaviour of teams shifts, usually in ways that undermine the very transparency Agile depends on. I have watched teams inflate point estimates, slice work unnaturally, or avoid tackling complex items simply because doing so would “hurt the numbers.” None of this improves delivery; it just distorts reality. One project stands out clearly. Leadership set quarterly velocity targets tied to team “maturity.” Within two sprints, the numbers went up, but not because the team was delivering more. They were just assigning higher point values to the same work. Planning became meaningless, trust eroded, and retros devolved into debates about metrics rather than conversations about improvement. Eventually, leadership realized the dashboards looked great while the product roadmap was slipping. The biggest lesson I learn is that metrics must serve the team, not the other way around. When organizations treat measures as indicators, not goals, they create space for honest conversations about risk, complexity, and capacity. Healthy measurement cultures focus on outcomes, flow, and customer value, not arbitrary numerical targets. If I were to guide a team facing this dynamic today, I would emphasize two principles: use metrics to learn, not judge; and pair every quantitative measure with qualitative insight. When teams feel safe to tell the truth, the numbers become meaningful again.
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1 reply by Stelian ROMAN
Sep 08, 2026 6:31 PM
Stelian ROMAN
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"Dan, I have seen Goodhart’s Law play out in Agile environments more times than I’d like to admit, and the pattern is remarkably consistent." Unfortunately, the pattern is consistent everywhere. My view is that it starts with a lack of understanding of Agile values, transparency, and delegation of authority to self-organising teams. PMO's play a significant role in good or bad Agile adoption. Reporting should be seen as a process improvement tool, not a witch hunt.
Saving Changes...
Stelian ROMANProject Manager| MicroSafetyCarlingford, New South Wales, Australia
Jun 26, 2026 11:29 PM
Replying to Ming Yeung
...
Dan, I have seen Goodhart’s Law play out in Agile environments more times than I’d like to admit, and the pattern is remarkably consistent. The moment leadership starts treating story points or velocity as performance targets rather than planning tools, the behaviour of teams shifts, usually in ways that undermine the very transparency Agile depends on. I have watched teams inflate point estimates, slice work unnaturally, or avoid tackling complex items simply because doing so would “hurt the numbers.” None of this improves delivery; it just distorts reality. One project stands out clearly. Leadership set quarterly velocity targets tied to team “maturity.” Within two sprints, the numbers went up, but not because the team was delivering more. They were just assigning higher point values to the same work. Planning became meaningless, trust eroded, and retros devolved into debates about metrics rather than conversations about improvement. Eventually, leadership realized the dashboards looked great while the product roadmap was slipping. The biggest lesson I learn is that metrics must serve the team, not the other way around. When organizations treat measures as indicators, not goals, they create space for honest conversations about risk, complexity, and capacity. Healthy measurement cultures focus on outcomes, flow, and customer value, not arbitrary numerical targets. If I were to guide a team facing this dynamic today, I would emphasize two principles: use metrics to learn, not judge; and pair every quantitative measure with qualitative insight. When teams feel safe to tell the truth, the numbers become meaningful again.
"Dan, I have seen Goodhart’s Law play out in Agile environments more times than I’d like to admit, and the pattern is remarkably consistent." Unfortunately, the pattern is consistent everywhere. My view is that it starts with a lack of understanding of Agile values, transparency, and delegation of authority to self-organising teams. PMO's play a significant role in good or bad Agile adoption. Reporting should be seen as a process improvement tool, not a witch hunt. Saving Changes...
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