OKRs, HDD, and DIBBs are all ways to create alignment with our organization's purpose by setting objectives that tie back to its strategic intent. Alignment helps establish the mission, but how do we choose the things that are of the highest priority/value to work on?

All are data-driven approaches, which help us focus on our customer. By setting measurements by which we can determine our success, we can inspect and adapt our approach. In essence, this allows us to optimize the value that we return to the organization.

When we talk about seeking value in a software product development context, we mean maximizing our customer or organization's return on investment. We can do this by prioritizing the delivery of features and User Stories so that we get the best return on investment for our customer (or company, if they are the same thing).

Adaptive planning allows for Plan Do Check Act (PDCA) cycles, where we can quickly adjust our return by prioritizing what is important to the business based on feedback from the previous period.

One thing that isn't easy is comparing one feature to another and determining objectively which will likely return the most value to the organization. Most companies still use very qualitative processes to estimate business value, for example, gut instinct. This approach creates unresolved arguments about one project versus another or one feature versus another and what gets funded. 

To reduce the debate, we need to level the playing field so that all types of value are quantifiably measured. In the next section, we'll look at some different ways of measuring value.