Somehow even your use of the word "force" here still manages to understate the severity of the problem.
The "Performance Management" craze is sweeping corporate management, along with the pernicious use of the "Balanced Scorecard" it advocates. Unable to identify meaningful metrics to build these scorecards with, management delegates to programmers the task of inventing metrics. Programmers, who know very well how any metric can be gamed, know that they're obligated to hand management a loaded gun, and hope they can fill the scorecards with a gun of the least-damaging calibre.
This will continue unabated until a better science appears, and there's a very real possibility that one never will (if programming is more akin to an art and/or craft).
The "Performance Management" craze is sweeping corporate management, along with the pernicious use of the "Balanced Scorecard" it advocates. Unable to identify meaningful metrics to build these scorecards with, management delegates to programmers the task of inventing metrics. Programmers, who know very well how any metric can be gamed, know that they're obligated to hand management a loaded gun, and hope they can fill the scorecards with a gun of the least-damaging calibre.
This will continue unabated until a better science appears, and there's a very real possibility that one never will (if programming is more akin to an art and/or craft).
I would love to have seen this presentation.