Adequate attention must be paid to performance, scalability and reliability. In baseball, statistics, more than anything else, are the measure of success. While it is possible to find statistical measures that may mislead you about the performance of a player or a team, there are probably other measures of the same variable that can clear up the confusion. However, despite statistics' apparent precision, there is a contextual element that must be considered. A major-league player who hits .400 is a superstar whose picture is on the front page of every newspaper, but a Little Leaguer who hits .400 is only a little above average.
Network managers face a tougher measurement challenge.
I recently had a conversation with a Unix systems programmer on my staff about our measurement and publication of server downtime statistics. We've compiled and published these statistics for several years in order to benchmark our success and emphasize to customers and staff that system availability is our highest priority. He objected to the fact that sometimes a server would be listed as up even though one or more important applications were either not available or not operating properly. Looks pretty gray to me. There are many other lessons that managers can learn from successful coaches, but the ones presented here seem to me the most important ones.