How to Measure Anything

Finding the Value of 'Intangibles' in Business

By: Douglas W. Hubbard

Narrated by: David Drummond

Length: 12 hrs and 40 mins

Publisher's summary

Anything can be measured. This bold assertion is the key to solving many problems in business and life in general. The myth that certain things can't be measured is a significant drain on our nation's economy, public welfare, the environment, and even national security. In fact, the chances are good that some part of your life or your professional responsibilities is greatly harmed by a lack of measurement---by you, your firm, or even your government.

Building up from simple concepts to illustrate the hands-on yet intuitively easy application of advanced statistical techniques, How to Measure Anything reveals the power of measurement in our understanding of business and the world at large. This insightful and engaging book shows you how to measure those things in your business that until now you may have considered "immeasurable," including technology ROI, organizational flexibility, customer satisfaction, and technology risk. Offering examples that will get you to attempt measurements---even when it seems impossible---this book provides you with the substantive steps for measuring anything, especially uncertainty and risk. Don't wait---listen to this book and find out:

• The three reasons why things may seem immeasurable but are not
• Inspirational examples of where seemingly impossible measurements were resolved with surprisingly simple methods
• How computing the value of information will show that you probably have been measuring all the wrong things
• How not to measure risk
• Methods for measuring "soft" things like happiness, satisfaction, quality, and more
• How to fine-tune human judges to be powerful, calibrated measurement instruments
• How you can use the Internet as an instrument of measurement

Download the accompanying reference guide.

©2010 Douglas Hubbard (P)2011 Tantor

Critic reviews

"I use this book as a primary reference for my measurement class at MIT. The students love it because it provides practical advice that can be applied to a variety of scenarios, from aerospace and defense, healthcare, politics, etc." (Ricardo Valerdi, Ph.D., Lecturer, MIT)

Too hard to follow

Great book, but sometimes it's just too hard to follow in audio format. Still, I think it's worth to buy paper book

Get the physical book instead of the audio.

The concepts in this book are great. I do think it will take time to apply to your own business work if you don't have a background in statistics.
I will say it's too dense for an audiobook. It would be best read as a physical book. A large portion of the book was hard to follow because of all the equations and references to external documents and spreadsheets. Also I would have preferred for their to be more examples/stories throughout the book.

Let go of "I don't know"

This book thoroughly debunks the idea that some things cannot be measured.

The principal problem is that when people think of measurement, they think of precision. If they cannot think of a way to measure something precisely, then they think the thing cannot be measured. By letting go of of this attachment to precision one finds that there are lots of ways that things can be measure that provide tremendously useful information. In most cases some rough measurements will reduce considerable uncertainty, and greatly improve decision making.

Warning. While this is a great book, it's hard to follow math on an audiobook. I'm glad I read it, but I wish I'd been using my eyes rather than my ears on this one.

Wow is all I can say!

This book will forever change how you perceive measurement and risk. And told in a way that is easy to understand. I really enjoyed it. BUT don't stop with just this book! The Failure of Risk Management is required reading along with this one. Seriously!

Fascinating AND Practical

This was a fascinating book... it gave me the opportunity to get clear on the tangibles for every area of life: business, sports, health - and provide tangible measures for progress and improvement, making it both insightful AND practical. I really enjoyed this program.

not ideal for audio

not ideal for audio. The map can be difficult to follow while cruising through traffic

A tool for helping find what we don’t know we don’t know.

“With enough information, we don’t have to make a decision; the path to follow is obvious.” That was a claim made in a decision support class in the early 80s at Hughes Aircraft Company in LA.
In my ongoing quest for decision necessity reduction, the resources introduced in this book will likely become some of the most valuable tools in my tool kit.

Very interesting and useful

A very practical guide to help you understand what measurement really is, how to reduce your uncertainty about a measurement or risk and make much more accurate and precise estimations. Very useful but can be hard to follow without the accompanying material with in front of you, so maybe print it out.

not a good fit for audio

I read some reviews warning that this was a math heavy book and tough to follow on audio, but I figured that I was well versed enough that I could follow it. that didn't end up being the issue. the math isn't overly complex if you've had a statistics class, there's just so much if it that large parts feel like listening to the phonebook.

it's a seminar sales pitch

I thought it would be nice to see how some qualities are valued, but after an hour and 5 seminar mentions, I was done.