[bane]

Yup, it's a more or less worthless conversation, but one that many knowledge workers end up in.

I remember once being a similar conversation regarding a training program I was working on, and the customer was trying to assess the value of the training not on the improved performance of the employees, but on some measurable "knowledge unit" that had been transferred to the student (regardless of their ability to retain it).

It was beyond frustrating.

[RandomLensman]

If you think your contributions to the economics of a business are impossible to understand, then you are in a dangerous position (your admittedly bad experience notwithstanding).

[bane]

What I'm saying is that measuring output for knowledge workers in terms of some kind of unit other than business impact is not a great idea.