Return on Software: Maximizing the Return on Your Software Investment

Different Kinds of “Value”

In an abstract sense, the decision-making process—be it a financial decision or not—is about maximizing value. You should always choose, from the set of alternatives available, the one that maximizes total value. When value can be expressed in terms of money (e.g., a cash-flow stream), the decision process may be complex (after all, it took 22 chapters to describe it), but it is still straightforward. However, that's only when value can be expressed as money. Money isn't the only kind of value. Money is, in fact, really only a way to quantify value. Generally speaking, there are two kinds of value:

• Use-value— The ability to get things done; the properties of the object that cause it to perform

• Esteem-value— The properties ...