From Tim Hartford’s review of Muller in the FT:
It makes the case for professional autonomy: that metrics should be tools in the hands of teachers, doctors and soldiers rather than tools in the hands of those who would oversee them.
The Tyranny of Metrics does us a service in briskly pulling together parallel arguments from economics, management science, philosophy and psychology along with examples from education, policing, medicine, business and the military. It makes the case for professional autonomy: that metrics should be tools in the hands of teachers, doctors and soldiers rather than tools in the hands of those who would oversee them. In an excellent final chapter, Muller summarises his argument thus: “measurement is not an alternative to judgement: measurement demands judgement: judgement about whether to measure, what to measure, how to evaluate the significance of what’s been measured, whether rewards and penalties will be attached to the results, and to whom to make the measurements available”.
Bob Shireman’s review of Muller is comming soon.