There is a lot of research that shows publicly posting data can be extremely valuable. Numerous studies demonstrate how effective this intervention can be. A commonly cited potential problem is that it can be aversive if you aren’t doing well, which might upset some people. But I’m not concerning myself with that problem here.
The main problem comes when people obsess over data that are publicly posted. These data will inevitably become a major focus for everyone. Now, if that is your top measurement, maybe that is OK. But probably not. Any data can be distorted when looked at in isolation.
If you are publicly posting data on things like whether the break room is cleaned up, then you are almost certainly using an intervention that is overpowered for what you need. But it might not cause too much harm.
We tend to underestimate how much data like this can influence behavior in negative ways. For example, I once talked to a teacher that worked in a behavior analytic school. The school had a system for publicly posting the number of teaching trials done by each instructor daily. Seems relatively harmless, right? In general, more teaching, more learning. But what happened is that teachers avoided teaching anything that required a lot of set up. Give him more discrete trial. Forget things like mands for information…
Once you start looking for this, you will see it everywhere. In my view, we don’t appreciate how often this effect happens in behavior analysis. Check out this book for a non-behavioral account of this effect in a variety of fields.