How to measure anything: Finding the Value of “Intangibles” in Business (2nd edition) – by Douglas W. Hubbard
I chose this book to help address client problems which sometimes present themselves on assignments when trying to establish scales of impact for certain risk effects on intangibles such as ‘reputation’, ‘staff morale’, ‘public mood’. My own work tries to ‘grade’ the impacts according to certain criteria thus enabling clients to make informed decisions about making cost-effective risk responses.
It has been an immense aid and the author explains how he came across situations where although clients claimed that something was “immeasurable” that measuring this something was in fact the subject of academic research or had already been enumerated by professionals working in another field.
Of particular interest are the author’s descriptions of building and using the Monte Carlo method to assist in understanding the real risks facing objectives and how to gauge confidence in estimates.