The Cobra in the Dashboard: Why Your Engineering Metrics Are Lying
Nov 3, 2025
The Cobra in the Dashboard: Why Your Engineering Metrics Are Lying
In colonial India, the British government faced a growing problem: too many cobras in Delhi. To control the population, they offered a bounty for every dead cobra brought in.
At first, it seemed to work. Piles of dead snakes arrived, and officials celebrated the program's success.
But then something unexpected happened. Enterprising locals began breeding cobras so they could kill them and claim the reward. When the government discovered the scheme and stopped the bounty program, the breeders released their now-worthless cobras into the wild.
The result was simple but ironic. There were more cobras than before.
This perverse outcome became known as “The Cobra Effect.” It is the clearest illustration of the insidious mechanism at the heart of Goodhart’s Law.
The Law Itself: Why Measures Fail
Goodhart’s Law states:
“When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.”
The moment a metric becomes the goal, it stops serving its original purpose. People begin optimizing solely for the number rather than the desired outcome it was meant to represent.
This isn't because they are trying to cheat the system. It happens because people are rational. They respond directly to what leaders signal as important.
When Engineering Metrics Go Wrong
Engineering teams are equally susceptible to this perverse incentive. When leaders rely on a single, easy-to-target measure, the system instantly rebels against its intended design:
- Velocity in Agile: Velocity goes up because teams inflate story points or cut scope, while technical debt silently balloons.
- Code Coverage: Developers write simple, redundant tests just to hit 90% coverage, leaving critical security holes exposed.
- MTTR (Mean Time to Recovery): Teams rush to meet the target, often forcing a quick fix without the necessary diagnosis of the root pathology.
- Commit Frequency/PR Counts: Engineers submit many tiny, low-impact changes to boost their count, leading to review fatigue and slower overall delivery.
Each of these metrics started with good intentions.
The problem began when they became a finish line instead of a flashlight.
Why It Happens
This metric failure, this digital cobra effect, arises when:
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The Proxy eclipses the Purpose
Teams lose sight of the higher-order value the metric was designed to serve. -
Context is Ignored
A single number is used to represent a system too complex to be captured by one variable. -
Conversation is Replaced
Metrics are used to judge and close discussion, rather than to open new lines of inquiry. -
Incentives are Distorted
When performance reviews or bonuses depend on the metric, transparency and honesty are the first casualties.
How to Fix It: Metrics as Tools for Learning
Metrics are still essential. The solution is not to abandon them, but to use them wisely.
Strong leaders use metrics to open conversations, not close them.
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Tie Metric to Decision
Always ask, “What action will this number help us take?” If there’s no clear answer, it’s probably a vanity metric. -
Balance Metrics
Pair speed-oriented measures (like deployment frequency) with quality measures (like customer-reported bugs). Balance prevents local optimization. -
Prioritize Leading Indicators
Focus on measuring the behaviors that create results, not just the results themselves. -
Audit Metrics Regularly
Metrics inevitably lose their effectiveness as people learn to game them. Be prepared to retire or refresh them. -
Encourage Narrative
Ask engineers to explain what changed and why, not just what the dashboard shows.
The Leadership Takeaway
Strong engineering leaders do not wield metrics as a scoreboard for control.
They use them as a reflective mirror to illuminate where true systemic correction is required.
When leaders measure only to manage, they end up creating Cobra effects.
When they measure to learn, they guide teams toward genuine improvement.
💬 Closing Thought
The next time you see a dashboard full of perfect numbers, pause and ask:
“Have we improved reality, or just the metric?”
#EngineeringLeadership #EngineeringMetrics #GoodhartsLaw #CobraEffect #LeadershipDevelopment