The problem
Most organizational dysfunction at scale comes from KPIs that were sensibly chosen as observational measures and then catastrophically pressed into service as causal targets. The structural reason is identifiable, and the solution is to design measures with their downstream optimization in mind.
Pages in this cluster
Goodhart's Law → Goodhart’s Law is a causal identification failure.
When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. In causal terms: optimizing a Rung 1 proxy is not the same as intervening on the Rung 2 cause. This applies to every KPI in every organization — and almost no KPI system ever checks whether the claim holds.
Designing KPIs → Designing KPIs that don’t break.
Most KPIs are selected by asking what correlates with the desired outcome. That is a Rung 1 question. The moment the KPI becomes a target, the organization begins intervening on it — a Rung 2 operation. The two answers are not the same. A KPI designed without checking whether those two answers are the same will break under optimization pressure.
Why these two pages pair
Goodhart's Law explains the failure mode. Designing KPIs describes the construction technique that mitigates it. Reading both produces a more rigorous KPI process than either alone.