GreatestSingleBenefit

I'm trying to measure the value of AYE quantitatively by the Greatest Single Benefit method. If you've already been to AYE and you want to participate, here's what you do:

Think about the year following your participation in AYE. Recall some actions you took (or avoided taking) that you wouldn't have done but for your participation in AYE.
Think about the financial benefits to your company (if they paid) or to you (if you paid). Choose the single action that produced the largest benefit.
Describe that action, that benefit, and the value you placed on it (for one year, even if it was an ongoing benefit). (Identify if it was personal or company.)
Post that information here. If we get enough posts, I'll try to do the calculation of the ROI of AYE. - JerryWeinberg 2004.06.27

I can not answer the question as posed but I have been thinking about it for some time. I have two stories of strategic successes that I have had recently. I believe that these successes are of great value to at the company I am working for but I can not give any quantitative value to their outcomes nor can I convince myself that AYE was responsible for the success and I would not have had these successes without AYE.

First there was an attempt being made to hire a new director of programming. I was not invited to give the interview but I button holed one of the Sr programmers and asked him how they were going to interview this candidate. He was not sure how to ask any questions besides programming questions. So on the spot I made up about 8 questions that I feel a director of programming should have a well thought out answer to. The programmer liked my questions and later told me that this list changed the course of the interview from what would have been a strong hire to a reject for managerial job. (The candidate was given a Sr programming job).

The second incident was an attempt by me to bring in one of the founders of the AYE conference as a consultant to help change the culture. I tried several different times to bring it up. I was careful about how, and when I mentioned it. Last week during a major crisis the CTO agreed to consider brining in some outside help for consultation. I he came by my desk right after calling her and told me that he was going to bring her in.

I leave it as an exercise for those with more experience then me to compute the dollar value of these successes.

Ken Estes 2004/06/28

I am having a problem similar to Ken's. In the last 2 years, I have had 2 long contracts and 2 short contracts. Both of the long contracts I got, at least in part, because some of the people making the decisions knew that I would use out-of-the-box ideas and that I would be supportive of the teams I worked with.

Were they the only people involved in the decisions? No. Were those the only reasons I got the contracts? No. Did I have both of those qualities before I came to AYE? Sure. But after 4 years at AYE, I have more ideas, I express them more often, and I explain them better. I am more aware of the support my teammates need and better able to offer it. I still have lots to learn, but I am more confident in what I know. Not all of what I have learned in the last few years is from AYE, but some of the rest is from places or people I heard of at AYE.

I paid for 2 years. I can see the difference it has made, but I don't have any idea how to calculate the benefit. SherryHeinze 2004.06.28

Okay, let me give it a try showing how to do this kind of thing.

If I had been in Ken's position, I might have reasoned like this:

Maybe AYE contributed 50% to my ability and willingness to make that list.
I have the statement that without the list the firm would have made a hiring mistake and put a person in a managerial job for which he was not suited. Putting a person in a wrong job, in the best case, would just incur the cost of, say, wasting one year's salary plus the hiring cost. (We can leave out the loss of a good person in another position, and the cost from any damage a misplaced person might have caused.)
Figure loaded salary at say $100K plu $50K overhead, and hiring costs at about $50K (or put in your own figures). That means the improved hiring process may have saved $200K on this one person. (Of course, if they keep using the questions, they'll keep adding value, but we're only looking for the greatest single benefit.)
If the AYE experience contributed 50% to this outcome, then the benefit was 50% of $200K. If you use a different percentage, the amount would change accordingly. We're not trying for ten-decimal accuracy, but only order of magnitude, which in this case certainly looks like the ROI from AYE for Ken was quite high. A good investment.

In Sherry's case, you can apply similar reasoning. Pick the one idea that really paid off the most, estimage the contribution of AYE learnings, and then estimate the value, as above. Let us know what it comes to--remember, we're only looking for one single benefit, though as Sherry points out, there may be many more.

The method uses a single benefit because it simplifies things, and guarantees we won't overestimate. It works in cases like this because the payoff from training is usually high if the training is good--and it's a gift that keeps on giving, so one single benefit is conservative enough to be convincing to almost any skeptic. - JerryWeinberg 2004.06.28

Jerry, can we calculate the greatest single benefit for my incorporated company is the increase in contracting rate that I have been able to charge over what I could get before I started going to AYE?

If we then take the hours for the one contract where I know the decision to hire me was strongly influenced by what I learned in AYE and multiply the hours by the rate increase (in US dollars), the benefit for that one contract was $8400 US.

The cost in US dollars for me to go to AYE (registration and travel) was $2250 US. SherryHeinze 2004.06.30

Yes, that works. The important point for computing training benefits is simply to see enough to convince yourself or others. Of course, you yourself are probably convinced by other means, but for those who have a boss to convince, a roughly 4 to 1 conservative return on investment should be adequate. If they're not convinced by that, you can either start to add in lesser benefits or find a new boss. - JerryWeinberg 2004.06.30

Mine is a tough computation. The single greatest benefit of AYE came out of the "Humor" session (thank you Diane and Naomi !), and its tangible manifestation was my buying a bunch of clown's red noses in preparation for a training session I gave in December, my first "real" sale as an independent trainer/consultant. I wouldn't have bought them, or dared wear one during the session, if not for the AYE conference. (The way I used the red nose in the session: just before a workshop where I was going to ask attendees to attempt a difficult task, I told them that I would be the first person in the group to look ridiculous, so they need not fear making mistakes. Then I put on the red nose.)

Since then I've had about $25K worth of business, give or take (nowhere near enough, but it's starting to snowball). It's rather hard to estimate a percentage of contribution of the red-nose thing to that total amount...

LaurentBossavit 2004.06.30 (I'll be turning 34 day after tomorrow...)

Nice call, Laurent, and nice trick. Who would have ever predicted that benefit, or that session, would be your GSB--but that's the way it works at AYE.

And don't worry about 34. You'll probably survive to wear your nose again. - JerryWeinberg 2004.06.30

Updated: Thursday, July 1, 2004