Tom Gilb & Kai Gilb's blog

A BLOGGER, FOLLOWED BY A TWITTER AND RETWEET SAID TODAY ......

"Ppl talk a lot about business value, but they forget that for most people business value is totally subjective! (i.e. unquantifiable)"

FROM Tom
To the blogger/twitterer (who could be many of you out there, not least - your manager!)


I think you need straightening out, regarding your terms
and concepts.

Of course, you don't have to get straightened out!  :)

'Subjective' means, based on personal opinion, as opposed to more-objective observation
"I think he is heavy". (subjective)
"The Scale shows he is 100 kilos" (objective)

Personal opinion can be quantified "I think he is about 100 kilos"

There is nothing wrong with value being subjective - in fact that is a normal, inevitable thing.
People and organizations have their own values, and that determines what they value.

Most of these values can be expressed quantitatively, if we want to, and know how.

But most often we do not Quantify our value statements, because we do not feel the need, we do not need to, we don't know how.

In my opinion, your view is dangerous, and your commonly held view that is one root cause of widespread project failure.

I suggest you study (if you care to rise above your misconceptions)
top level objectives

and 

vision engineering
Quantifying Stakeholder Values
Value delivery paper

and finally study the process for quantification in
ch 5 Competitive Engineering

When you have concluded, correctly, that you were wrong, misleading, and a danger to the IT community for spreading such incorrect views, you should consider blogging to illuminate your readers about your new insights.

Then consider what this might mean to the better control of agile processes (quantified values as Requirements and testable outputs, and increments).

Like this
Confirmit Case

Value Driven Project Management

Your observation might be more accurate and useful if you had said.... (you can quote me):

"People are good at articulating their business values with nice sounding words ('greater efficiency') but universally terrible at clarifying exactly what they mean numerically and testably. This is one root cause of project failure. The problem with articulating business values is not that people are intellectually incapable of quantifying and defining them. The problem is that they were never trained to Quantify them, nor were that asked by their organization and management to Quantify them" (© Tom Gilb 5 Dec 2009)

I think I will put the above in my blog, but I won't identify you. You are after all the victim of poor education regarding quantification of critical values, like most people. The good news is you can rise above the level of your teachers, if you choose to.

Don't take this personally. It is not your fault.
But it will  be your fault if you do not improve your understanding of these things.

If I seem angry - I am! These attitudes and misconceptions are directly at the heart of our horrendous IT project failure rate, and consequent lack of trust in IT. We need to learn to succeed more often than we fail. We need to deliver real expected value to society. The programmers of the world are not exactly famous for doing so. I am ashamed to be somehow related to the community. But I am fighting for change. How about you?

You might like to know there are some people who feel as strongly as I do that this immature profession needs to grow up.

http://www.semat.org/bin/view
Welcome if you want to join us.

Tom
.


SOME DICTIONARY DEFINITIONS

subjective |səbˈjektiv|
adjective
1 based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions : his views are highly subjective |there is always the danger of making a subjective judgment. Contrasted with objective 

value |ˈvalyoō|
noun
1 the regard that something is held to deserve; the importance or preciousness of something :your support is of great value.
• the material or monetary worth of something : prints seldom rise in value | equipment is included up to a total value of $500.
• the worth of something compared to the price paid or asked for it : at $12.50 the book is agood value.
• the usefulness of something considered in respect of a particular purpose : some new drugs are of great value in treating cancer.
• the relative rank, importance, or power of a playing card, chess piece, etc., according to the rules of the game.
2 ( values) a person's principles or standards of behavior; one's judgment of what is important in life : they internalize their parents' rules and values.
3 the numerical amount denoted by an algebraic term; a magnitude, quantity, or number : the mean value of x | an accurate value for the mass of Venus.

quantify |ˈkwäntəˌfī|
verb ( -fies, -fied)  trans. 
1 express or Measure the quantity of : it's very hard to Quantify the cost.