How to Measure Anything

Now updated with new measurement methods and new examples, How to Measure Anything shows managers how to inform themselves in order to make less risky, more profitable business decisions

This insightful and eloquent book will show you how to measure those things in your own business, government agency or other organization that, until now, you may have considered “immeasurable,” including customer satisfaction, organizational flexibility, technology risk, and technology ROI.

• Adds new measurement methods, showing how they can be applied to a variety of areas such as risk management and customer satisfaction
• Simplifies overall content while still making the more technical applications available to those readers who want to dig deeper
• Continues to boldly assert that any perception of “immeasurability” is based on certain popular misconceptions about measurement and measurement methods
• Shows the common reasoning for calling something immeasurable, and sets out to correct those ideas
• Offers practical methods for measuring a variety of “intangibles”
• Provides an online database (www.howtomeasureanything.com) of downloadable, practical examples worked out in detailed spreadsheets

Written by recognized expert Douglas Hubbard―creator of Applied Information Economics―How to Measure Anything, Third Edition illustrates how the author has used his approach across various industries and how any problem, no matter how difficult, ill defined, or uncertain can lend itself to measurement using proven methods.

Table of Contents

Part I The Measurement Solution Exists

Chapter 1 The Challenge of Intangibles

Chapter 2 An Intuitive Measurement Habit: Eratosthenes, Enrico, and Emily

Chapter 3 The Illusion of Intangibles: Why lmmeasurables Aren’t

Part II Before You Measure

Chapter 4 Clarifying the Measurement Problem

Chapter 5 Calibrated Estimates: How Much Do You Know Now?

Chapter 6 Quantifying Risk through Modeling

Chapter 7 Quantifying the Value of Information

Part Ill Measurement Methods

Chapter 8 The Transition: From What to Measure to How to Measure

Chapter 9 Sampling Reality: How Observing Some Things Tells Us about All Things

Chapter 10 Bayes: Adding to What You Know Now

Part IV Beyond the Basics

Chapter 11 Preference and Attitudes: The Softer Side of Measurement

Chapter 12 The Ultimate Measurement Instrument: Human Judges

Chapter 13 New Measurement Instruments for Management

Chapter 14 A Universal Measurement Method: Applied Information Economics

Appendix: Calibration Tests (and Their Answers)

About the Author

Douglas W. Hubbard is the inventor of Applied Information Economics (AIE), a measurement methodology that has earned him critical praise from The Gartner Group, Giga Information Group, and Forrester Research. He is an internationally recognized expert in the field of decision analysis and challenging measurements and is a popular speaker at numerous conferences. He has written articles for Information Week, CIO Enterprise, and DBMS Magazine. He is the author of The Failure of Risk Management: Why It’s Broken and How to Fix It and Pulse: The New Science of Harnessing Internet Buzz to Track Threats and Opportunities.