If value exists and moves through systems, a natural question follows:
Can value be observed and measured - without reducing everything to money?
The short answer is: yes.
But not in the way most people expect.
Measurement starts with observation
Before value can be measured, it must be observed.
Observation does not require formulas or dashboards. It starts with noticing changes:
- Did something become easier or harder?
- Did time to act decrease or increase?
- Did uncertainty turn into clarity - or the other way around?
- Did someone gain or lose the ability to take the next step?
These changes are not abstract. They are concrete effects experienced by people, teams, or systems.
When such changes are interpreted as improvements, we call them value. When they are interpreted as deterioration, we call them anti-value.
Value is measured in changes, not objects
A common mistake is to look for value inside things: features, products, documents, or services.
But value does not live inside objects.
Value exists only as a change of state in someone who receives something.
A document has no value by itself. A feature has no value by itself. Even money has no value by itself.
Value appears only when something changes:
- a task becomes possible,
- a decision becomes easier,
- a risk becomes lower,
- a process becomes faster,
- or an outcome becomes achievable.
Not all measurements are numerical
Measurement does not always mean numbers.
In practice, value can be observed and compared using different types of signals:
- Binary: did this help or not?
- Relative: better or worse than before?
- Ordinal: more valuable than alternative A, less than B?
- Quantitative: how much time was saved, how many errors were avoided?
Numbers are useful - but only when they reflect real changes in state.
When numbers are detached from interpretation, they stop representing value and start representing noise.
Money is a special case, not a universal answer
Money is often used as a proxy for value because it is convenient and widely accepted.
However, money measures only one specific form of value exchange.
Many important effects happen before or after money appears:
- time spent waiting,
- effort invested without result,
- trust gained or lost,
- capability increased or reduced.
Two people can receive the same amount of money and experience very different value.
This does not make money useless - it simply makes it insufficient as the only measure.
Value can be planned, realized, and re-evaluated
Another important observation is that value is not fixed in time.
When something is created or delivered, there is usually an expected value - what the sender believes will be useful.
When it is actually used, a realized value appears - what the receiver experiences in reality.
Later, after seeing consequences, the same value can be re-evaluated.
This means that observing value requires attention to:
- expectations,
- actual effects,
- and feedback over time.
Why observation is already a form of control
Once value is observed, it stops being invisible.
Once it is no longer invisible, patterns begin to emerge:
- where value consistently gets lost,
- where anti-value accumulates,
- where effort produces no real change,
- and where small actions create large effects.
This does not yet require management tools or formal processes.
But it creates the foundation for them.
From observation to theory
At some point, simple observation is no longer enough.
As systems grow more complex, we need a consistent language to describe:
- who exchanges value with whom,
- what exactly is being exchanged,
- how interpretations differ,
- and why systems remain stable - or collapse.
This is where theory becomes necessary.
Not to replace experience - but to structure it.
Next: From everyday observations to a formal language - the Theory of Value Management.