Asymptotically Approaching Useful Developer Metrics

"We're putting new cover sheets on all of our TPS reports now before they go out, didn't you get the memo?"

Joking aside, it's not an easy problem. I would have liked to hear more about the nitty gritty details of what these new systems are supposed to be measuring.

At a more general level, it's a manifestation of the principal-agent problem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal-agent_problem) which is caused by information asymmetries - the programmer knows more than the boss about what's really going on.

Compounding the problem is that even the programmer can't predict "black swan" types of issues that come up and blow things up in a big way.