The Proof Was Never the Point

Twenty-five Fields medallists just described a measurement failure that is sitting on your dashboard

The short version

Write the correspondence clause for every metric you track: "this number tracks X because producing it requires Y." Price Y today, not when you adopted the metric. A spread that bunches up is a reason to look, not a verdict: ask whether the metric can now be raised by a route that does not touch the outcome. Take a decoupled metric out of the compensation plan before you take it off the dashboard.

A proxy metric is a bet that producing the artifact stays expensive in the same way the real goal is expensive. That bet is never written down, and it is the entire basis of the measurement.

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