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incentives

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  • No visual on file
    Incentive Design Entry #0376

    Why paying for blood donations reduced supply

    Adding money to a voluntary act can reduce how often it is performed, because the payment replaces the reason people were doing it at all.

    Novice
    The hidden part #0376

    A payment does not only add a motive. It can delete the one that was already there.

    Open file
  • No visual on file
    Platform Mechanics Entry #0283

    The reason a metric becomes a target and then a lie

    Any measure good enough to manage by is good enough to game, and the gaming arrives through exactly the same channel as the improvement.

    Adept
    The hidden part #0283

    A measure used as a target stops describing the thing it was chosen to describe.

    Open file
  • No visual on file
    Incentive Design Entry #0392

    Why a quota changes the composition of output

    A quota specifies a count. Whatever is not counted becomes the cheapest thing to sacrifice, so the total holds while the mix quietly deteriorates.

    Adept
    The hidden part #0392

    A quota does not raise output. It rearranges output around the one attribute that is being counted.

    Open file
  • No visual on file
    Incentive Design Entry #0390

    Why free options are consumed wastefully

    A price does two jobs: it raises revenue and it sorts users by how much they need the thing. Remove the price and the second job stops being done.

    Master
    The hidden part #0390

    A price is not only a charge. It is a filter that sorts demand by need, and free resources have no filter.

    Open file
  • No visual on file
    Incentive Design Entry #0400

    Why removing an incentive rarely restores the earlier behaviour

    An incentive supplies a reason and overwrites the one already there. Withdrawing the payment does not reinstate what it replaced.

    Adept
    The hidden part #0400

    An incentive does not sit on top of the previous reason. It replaces it, and withdrawal leaves the replacement in place with the price set to zero.

    Open file
  • No visual on file
    Incentive Design Entry #0399

    The reason a leaderboard demotivates the middle

    A ranking motivates whoever can plausibly move on it. For everyone whose position is settled, it removes the reason to try at all.

    Master
    The hidden part #0399

    A ranking motivates only where position is contestable. For the settled middle it publishes the news that effort will not change the outcome.

    Open file
  • No visual on file
    Incentive Design Entry #0398

    Why deadlines improve output and lower ambition

    A deadline is met by narrowing the work, not by accelerating it. Delivery improves and the discarded scope leaves no record of having existed.

    Adept
    The hidden part #0398

    A deadline does not make work faster. It makes work smaller, and the discarded version never enters the record to be missed.

    Open file
  • No visual on file
    Incentive Design Entry #0397

    The reason a promotion can be a demotion

    A promotion is awarded for performance in one job and delivered as a different job. The evidence used to select is evidence about the role being left.

    Adept
    The hidden part #0397

    Promotion selects on evidence from the job being left. Nobody collected evidence about the job being entered, and the acceptance is not that evidence.

    Open file
  • No visual on file
    Incentive Design Entry #0396

    Why volunteers outperform paid workers on some tasks

    Payment does not add to an existing reason for doing something. It can replace it, and the replacement is often smaller than what it displaced.

    Novice
    The hidden part #0396

    A small payment does not sit alongside the original reason for doing something. It replaces it, and then has to compete on its own terms.

    Open file
  • No visual on file
    Incentive Design Entry #0395

    The reason an unmeasured task disappears

    Effort is allocated across tasks that compete for the same hours. Measuring one of them does not add attention; it moves attention off the others.

    Master
    The hidden part #0395

    Measuring one task does not create effort. It withdraws it from whatever was competing, and the loss is invisible because unmeasured work has no series to fall.

    Open file