There is a simple but undeniable element of genius to the idea of, instrumenting the number of validations triggered. I would hazard a guess that 90+% of teams would focus on an "order success rate" type of metric and call it a day, instead of a "# of times bad data was handled" metric, which is exactly how you escape this trap of good work going unnoticed.
Thanks for sharing! Shamelessly stealing and applying this concept at work next week!
Yeah. Another way I would put it is to also look at inputs that strayed off the happy path. There may be something to learn from them as well, maybe something that adjusts the happy path.
That's exactly where we started. It worked or it didn't, right? The team was super curious to know, in fact, how many of the edge cases happened. That piece right there had some unexpected value as well. And it grew out from there.
Thanks for sharing! Shamelessly stealing and applying this concept at work next week!