202402251454 Rule beating

#new

Rule beating is when an actor takes evasive actions in a system. An example is when people only adhere to the letter of the law in order to avoid actually adhering to the spirit of it.¹

We see this in software engineering when an organization starts valuing metrics like lines of code written, PRs created, reviews approved, or bugs fixed. These rules and the rule beating behaviors around them can lead to significant distortions of the system and even the exact opposite outcomes than their intentions (e.g., developers introducing bugs to fix them for the metric). The way to get out of this situation is to redesign the rules so that people's creativity, behaviors, and incentives are aligned with the intention or spirit of the rules. Actors will naturally align themselves with them and produce the desired systemic effects.