Product Description

Praise for How to Measure Anything: Finding the Value of Intangibles in Business

"I love this book. Douglas Hubbard helps us create a path to know the answer to almost any question in business, in science, or in life . . . Hubbard helps us by showing us that when we seek metrics to solve problems, we are really trying to know something better than we know it now. How to Measure Anything provides just the tools most of us need to measure anything better, to gain that insight, to make progress, and to succeed."
-Peter Tippett, PhD, M.D.
Chief Technology Officer at CyberTrust
and inventor of the first antivirus software

"Doug Hubbard has provided an easy-to-read, demystifying explanation of how managers can inform themselves to make less risky, more profitable business decisions. We encourage our clients to try his powerful, practical techniques."
-Peter Schay
EVP and COO of
The Advisory Council

"As a reader you soon realize that actually everything can be measured while learning how to measure only what matters. This book cuts through conventional clichés and business rhetoric and offers practical steps to using measurements as a tool for better decision making. Hubbard bridges the gaps to make college statistics relevant and valuable for business decisions."
-Ray Gilbert
EVP Lucent

"This book is remarkable in its range of measurement applications and its clarity of style. A must-read for every professional who has ever exclaimed, 'Sure, that concept is important, but can we measure it?'"
-Dr. Jack Stenner
Cofounder and CEO of MetraMetrics, Inc.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2498 in Books
• Published on: 2007-08-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 304 pages

Review
"...the book for anyone who wants to know how to measure the value of information or any other intangible asset." (Computer Weekly, Tuesday 18th September 2007) "... allows [companies] to measure performance in such diverse areas as customer satisfaction, employee morale, quality and organisational flexibility." (CPO Agenda, Autumn 2007)

"How many times have you been asked to quantify something that is nebulous or intangible? As a system engineer at Sun, this happens to me all the time. A colleague of mine referred me to How to Measure Anything…one of the best books I've seen in this area." (blogs.sun.com; 1/28/08)

"After reading Hubbard's excellent book on 'How to Measure Anything', I was able to immediately solve several measurement challenges for my CEO and Business Owner colleagues. It should be on every manager's desk." (Amazon.com; 10/07)

"…the book for anyone who wants to know how to measure the value of information or any other intangible asset." (Computer Weekly, Tuesday 18th September 2007)

"Hubbard has made a career of finding ways to measure things that other folks thought were immeasurable. Quality? The value of telecommuting? The risk of IT project failure? the benefits of greater IT security? Public image? He says it can be done -- and without breaking the bank. Many IT steering committees won't approve projects that "can't be measured," so it behooves CIOs to figure this out! ...... If you'd like to fare better in the project-approval wars, take a look at this book." (ComputerWorld, 8/07)

"… allows [companies] to measure performance in such diverse areas as customer satisfaction, employee morale, quality and organisational flexibility." (CPO Agenda, Autumn 2007)

From the Inside Flap
How to Measure Anything: Finding the Value of Intangibles in Business

From market research to information technology to financial reporting, How to Measure Anything reveals the power of measurement to our understanding of business and the world at large. This insightful and eloquent book will show you how to measure those things in your own business that, until now, you may have considered "immeasurable," including customer satisfaction, organizational flexibility, technology risk, and technology ROI.

With examples ranging from how a marine biologist measures the population of fish in a large lake to how the United States Marine Corps found out what really matters in forecasting fuel requirements for the battlefield, you will discover a "universal approach" to measuring "intangibles," along with some interesting methods for particular problems.

Here, you will learn about:

• The Illusion of Intangibles: Why Immeasurables Aren't

• Calibrated Estimates: How Much Do You Know Now?

• Measuring Risk: Introduction to the Monte Carlo

• Sampling Reality: How Observing Some Things Tells Us about All

• Unconventional Measurement Instruments such as the internet, human judges, prediction markets, and more

• Measuring the Value of Information: What's It Worth to Measure?

Written by recognized expert Douglas Hubbard—creator of Applied Information Economics—How to Measure Anything 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. Direct and easy-to-follow, How to Measure Anything is a resource no manager or executive can afford to be without.

From the Back Cover
Praise for How to Measure Anything: Finding the Value of Intangibles in Business

"I love this book. Douglas Hubbard helps us create a path to know the answer to almost any question in business, in science, or in life . . . Hubbard helps us by showing us that when we seek metrics to solve problems, we are really trying to know something better than we know it now. How to Measure Anything provides just the tools most of us need to measure anything better, to gain that insight, to make progress, and to succeed."
—Peter Tippett, PhD, M.D., Chief Technology Officer at CyberTrust, and inventor of the first antivirus software

"Doug Hubbard has provided an easy-to-read, demystifying explanation of how managers can inform themselves to make less risky, more profitable business decisions. We encourage our clients to try his powerful, practical techniques."
—Peter Schay, EVP and COO of The Advisory Council

"As a reader you soon realize that actually everything can be measured while learning how to measure only what matters. This book cuts through conventional clichés and business rhetoric and offers practical steps to using measurements as a tool for better decision making. Hubbard bridges the gaps to make college statistics relevant and valuable for business decisions."
—Ray Gilbert, EVP Lucent

"This book is remarkable in its range of measurement applications and its clarity of style. A must-read for every professional who has ever exclaimed, 'Sure, that concept is important, but can we measure it?'"
—Dr. Jack Stenner, Cofounder and CEO of MetraMetrics, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Eye opening
Nutshell review - What a fantastic and eye-opening book - it is very well written and gives us some wonderful insights into the world of measuring. The book explains the mathematical concepts clearly (without becoming a book on math or statistics), provides excellent examples to help understand the material and shows how to apply these concepts in the real world.

Hubbard defines a measurement as creating a set of observations that reduce uncertainty and expressing that result as a quantity. This idea of reducing uncertainty in that which we want to measure (as opposed to trying to calculate some exact and objective number) provides an excellent aha! start to the material. Each chapter draws the reader in with more insights and greater understanding, building upon previous material and culminating with a very well presented case for being able to measure (i.e. reduce the uncertainty in) apparently anything.

Hubbard includes several quotes throughout the text and I think this one should help convince anyone interested in reducing uncertainty in their field of work to read this book; "Anything you need to quantify can be measured in some way that is superior to not measuring it at all" - Gilb's Law.

Easy to read, practical
This book is a real gem.
While the layout and graphical design are a little on the "homely" side, Hubbard's text and examples are very easy to read and understand. Plenty of key points emphasized in sidebars and very practical, authentic examples that really make the subject live and breath.
Highly recommended.

Very interesting read
As a person who has to measure a lot of data, I often feel overwhelmed. Douglas Hubbard puts measurement into perspective, and breaks it down into sane manageable chunks. I enjoyed this book and recommend it highly.