You can't control what you can't measure

In an opinion piece in IEEE Software, Software Engineering: An Idea Whose Time Has Come and Gone? Tom DeMarco puts his finger on something that's been bugging me about what passes for software engineering for a long time.

I still believe it makes excellent sense to engineer software. But that isn’t exactly what software engineering has come to mean. The term encompasses a specific set of disciplines including defined process, inspections and walkthroughs, requirements engineering, traceability matrices, metrics, precise quality control, rigorous planning and tracking, and coding and documentation standards. All these strive for consistency of practice and predictability.

I'll try to paraphrase his point. Although you can't control what you can't measure, control and predictability are important only in projects of marginal value. In high value projects, rigid cost control becomes insignificant. Maybe that's why so much real innovation takes place in hacker's garages rather than on corporate campuses.