If you ask a business executive, can you manage something without understanding it? Most will say, "no" or "not effectively" and many (having done this a number of times) will cite the aphorism, "you can't manage what you can't measure." Of course, understanding a situation and having metrics that inform you on it it,  quite often do not always equate. Typically metrics are a necessary but not really sufficient part of the understanding. Understanding comes from inter-relating and processing the metrics in a meaningful way- thought, discussion, etc… are usually involved.