Brian Quinn writes in Forbes : “‘What gets measured gets done.’ This old chestnut has been kicking around management theory for decades, and is the heart of ‘management by objective’ (MBO)—if you set a target and measure progress, your organization will move heaven and earth to achieve it. It’s an old chestnut because it’s largely true.”  

“So what you choose to measure becomes pretty important, particularly for innovation. As I wrote in my last article, if we want to drive innovation as a discipline, then we need to measure how effectively we’re innovating, which efforts and methods are working, and what innovation is ultimately delivering for the enterprise. Without measuring these things, we’re effectively driving without headlights—faintly hoping once again that innovation will deliver something useful rather than demanding it, and holding ourselves accountable for achieving it.”