A Grade is Not Enough

I’ve been reading a lot on scores and measuring systems this week.  I’m trying to come up with some KPIs for a new process in the area of Innovation.

Look at this scoring system when trying to rank things based on Up / Down votes.

Wilson’s Algorithm Via EvanMiller.org

It’s called Wilson’s Algorithm, read more here.  It is actually pretty good and providing a Score based on limited knowledge.  A Score is just a Score, it does not provide any context.

Looking at some of the scores in the NCAA Men’s Basketball bracket, does not tell you much on how the game was, and few things on the individual teams.  Look at the following comic:

A score needs to be a way to explain a set of attributes and their relationship on each other.  It is easy to explain a score on an exam, % of questions answered correctly.  This becomes tricky with behaviours, a score needs to correlate with particular attributes.

We get lost in the Score, while failing to understand it’s meaning.