>You simply don't, and are circling "instrumentation" and "measurements" in hope > they tell you anything useful. But all measurement in the world won't help y

>You simply don't, and are circling "instrumentation" and "measurements" in hope > they tell you anything useful. But all measurement in the world won't help you > know the value of something that does not exist yet. Instrumentation and measurements help to create an argument in support of doing X. Imagine the conversation .... Dev Manager enters the VP's office, "Hi Bob, dev team X cost roughly 1 million USD a year, they'd like to work on an infrastructure project, current estimate is 4 months but you know how it goes, it'll be six by the time it's done. ", Bob replies, "OK, so 500k of cost, what business value will it deliver?" "I dunno. Well they actually say that you just take a risk, cos every time you make a decision you're taking a risk - and without big risks there are no big rewards". "Yeah, I'm not taking a big risk with my familys future by being fired for not having any sort of defensible thesis as to why we decided to work on this project versus any of the others that other departments are screaming for. So thanks but no thanks." "Oh no, but you don't understand, they're extra special. Team X are superstars they can't possibly measure their contribution like other business functions are expected to. Cos you know it's tech - it's like magic and if you don't get it you're just not smart enough". "Yeah, they might be smart, but they're not smart at making arguments that will help me fund this project. Come back when you've got a good argument that I can defend to the CEO with a straight face" ... and that's the problem, big risks sound great when you're not on the hook if it doesn't come good. Ofc if you live in Google (or similar outlier) then you probably don't care because money is showering in from the heavens. But most businesses are in reactive mode because they're trying to steer between the various rocks of problems they face!