The Measurement Revolution

The cost of collecting, storing, and analyzing data has decreased about 10,000 times over the last 20 years! In addition, technology experts agree that this trend of lower technology prices will last at least another 20 years. Therefore, we can measure, record, analyze, and communicate at rapidly decreasing costs at a rate never experienced in human history. This leads to the two major benefits: 1. Measuring phenomena that existed before but have never been measured. 2. Measuring more frequently and precisely the manual processes that existed before. Measuring more, faster, and better may yield tremendous business benefits, but only if you know when the cost of measurement is less than the benefit of the measurement. This is, in essence, what this book is all about.