Metrics change slowly. This is especially true in R&D and product development, and for many reasons. New business processes take years to evolve and become the new normal. Then, new measures get adopted. The infrastructure behind metrics is complex. People have to change what they track and record, then IT has to put it into a system. Management is uncomfortable with new metrics that do not have several years of past data. Few choose to recreate that data rather they wait several years for it to accumulate.
As well, R&D and product development are among the least understood major business functions. Business leaders hesitate to change measures in areas where they did not have direct experience on their way to the top of the corporate ladder. As a result, the leaders of innovation departments chartered with inventing the future have enjoyed less oversight than they probably should have—for a long time. Until now.