Title Details

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 IT value and is a popular speaker at numerous conferences. He has written articles for Information Week, CIO Enterprise, and DBMS Magazine. Formerly with Coopers & Lybrand, he has over twenty years' experience in IT management consulting, including twelve years' experience specifically in teaching organizations to use his AIE method. Dozens of Fortune 500 companies and government agencies have applied his method to IT investments, military logistics, venture capital, aerospace, and environmental issues. Find out more at www.howtomeasureanything.com.

Preface.

Acknowledgements.

Section I. Measurement: The Solution Exists.

Chapter 1. The Intangibles and the Challenge.

Chapter 2. An Intuitive Measurement Habit: Eratosthenes, Enrico & Emily.

How an Ancient Greek Measured the Size of the Earth.

Estimating: Be like Fermi.

Experiments: Not just for adults.

Notes on What to Learn from Eratosthenes, Enrico and Emily.

Chapter 3. The Illusion of Intangibles: Why Immeasurables Aren't.

The Concept of Measurement.

The Object of Measurement.

The Methods of Measurement.

Economic Objections to Measurement.

The Broader Objection to the Usefulness of & "Statistics".

Ethical Objections to Measurement.

Toward A Universal Approach to Measurement.

Section II. Before You Measure.

Chapter 4. Clarifying the Measurement Problem.

Getting the Language Right: What Uncertainty and Risk Really Mean.

Examples of Clarification: Lessons for Business from, of all places, Government?

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

Calibration Exercise.

Further Improvements on Calibration.

Conceptual Obstacles to Calibration.

The Effects of Calibration.

Chapter 6. Measuring Risk: Introduction to the Monte Carlo Simulation.

An Example for Monte Carlo and Risk.

Tools and other Resources for Monte Carlo Simulations.

The Risk Paradox.

Chapter 7. Measuring the Value of Information.

The Chance of Being Wrong and The Cost of Being Wrong: Expected.

Opportunity Loss.

The Value of Information for Ranges.

The Imperfect World: The Value of Partial Uncertainty Reduction.

The Epiphany Equation: The Value of a Measurement Changes Everything.

Summarizing Uncertainty, Risk and Information Value: The first measurements.

Section III. Measurement Methods

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

Tools of Observation: Introduction to the Instrument of Measurement.

Decomposition.

Secondary Research: Assuming You Weren't the First to Measure It.

The Basic Methods of Observation: If One Doesn't Work, Try the Next.

Measure Just Enough.

Consider the Error.

Choose and Design the Instrument

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

Building an Intuition for Random Sampling: The Jelly Bean Example.

A Little About Little Samples: A Beer Brewers Approach.

The Easiest Sample Statistics Ever.

A Sample of Sampling Methods.

Measure to the Threshold.

Experiment.

Seeing Relationships in the Data: An Introduction to Regression Modeling.

Chapter 10. Bayes: Adding to What You Know Now.

Simple Bayesian.

Using Your Natural Bayesian Instinct.

Heterogeneous Benchmarking: A "Brand Damage" Application.

Getting a Bit More Technical: Bayesian Inversion for Ranges.

Section IV. Beyond the Basics.

Chapter 11. Preference & Attitudes - The Softer Side of Measurement.

Observing Opinions, Values, and the Pursuit of Happiness: The Basics.

A Willingness to Pay: Measuring Value via Trade Offs.

Putting it all on the Line: Quantifying Risk Tolerance.

Quantifying Subjective Tradeoffs: Dealing with Multiple Conflicting Preferences?

Keeping the Big Picture in Mind: Profit Maximization vs. Subjective Tradeoffs.

Chapter 12. The Ultimate Measurement Instrument - Human Judges.

Homo Absurdus: The Weird Reasons Behind Our Decisions.

Getting Organized: A Performance Evaluation Example.

Surprisingly Simple Linear Models.

How to Standardize Any Evaluation: Rasch Models.

Removing Human Inconsistency: The Lens Model.

Panacea or Placebo?: Questionable Methods of Measurement.

Comparing the Methods.

Chapter 13. New Measurement Instruments for Management.

The 21st Century Tracker: Keeping Tabs with Technology.

Measuring the World: The Internet as An Instrument.

Prediction Markets: Wall Street Efficiency Applied to Measurements.

Chapter 14. A Universal Measurement Method - Applied Information Economics.

Bringing the Pieces Together.

Case: The Value of The System That Monitors Your Drinking Water.

Case: Forecasting Fuel for the Marine Corps.

Ideas for Getting Started: A Few Final Examples.

Summarizing the Philosophy.

Appendix. Calibration Tests.

Index.

"Over the past several posts I've been discussing how networkers can reduce supposed "immeasurables" or "intangibles" to something that can in fact be measured, and I've been using Douglas Hubbard's excellent book How to Measure Anything as a guide. I highly recommend that you pick up a copy of the book if you want more details about the approach I've been discussing. For a small book, it covers a lot of ground." (networkworld.com, April 4th, 2009)

"Interestingly written and full of case studies and rich examples, Hubbard's book is a valuable resource for those who routinely make decisions involving uncertainty. This book is readable and quite entertaining, and even those who consider themselves averse to statistics may find it highly approachable." (Strategic Finance, September 2008)

"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)