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

CHAPTER 1 The Challenge of Intangibles

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

• Describe different definitions of intangibles.
• Explain why measurements matter.
• Explain the different reasons for measurements.
• Explain the purpose of a decision-oriented framework for measurement.
• Describe the key steps in the Applied Information Economics approach to measurement.
• Explain why we use “power tools” for measurement.
• Provide an outline to the remainder of the book.

CHAPTER OVERVIEW

Chapter NaN proposes that anything can be measured and explains why measurements are critical to business, government, and life, and it outlines the case for this in the book. In business, there is an unlimited array of so-called “intangibles” like management effectiveness, research productivity, and public image, each of which turns out to be measurable by methods that are simpler than the reader may think.

The book proposes a “decision-oriented” framework for measurement. It is preferable to use quantitative models over unaided subjective intuition. For each decision, there are many “micro-decisions” about what to measure.

A method called Applied Information Economics (AIE) is introduced as a universal approach to measurement problems. The complexities of measurement can be simplified with a “power tools” approach to statistics.

QUESTIONS

1. Two common understandings of the word “intangible” apply to things that can be measured but are not _______, and things that cannot be measured at all. One purpose of this text ...