by Robin F. Goldsmith

Common presumed best practices for determining Return on Investment (ROI), advocated by almost all apparent authorities, in reality often undermine ROI's very purposes.

ROI is supposed to provide a valid and reliably supportable objective basis for making decisions: the quantified dollar benefits of an approach versus its quantified dollar costs. However, the customarily recommended practice of listing but not quantifying the dollar value of "intangible" benefits leaves a gaping loophole that can render even seemingly conscientious ROI analysis a deceptive sham.

The dirty little secret of ROI is that voluminous documentation and calculations often are merely a smokescreen obscuring the fact that in most organizations the proponent's favored outcome almost always prevails. Although perhaps not consciously recognized, calling the exercise "justification" indicates a mindset where there's not even a  pretense of objectivity, since measurements are chosen to justify the proponent's predefined answer.