AI-Driven Organizational Value

A Portfolio of Measures for Turning AI Adoption into Business Results

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The AI age is everywhere except in the P&L. Adoption curves climb, pull requests multiply, copilots draft the memos, and the numbers a board governs by sit still. Study after study finds most enterprise AI investment delivering no measurable return, and executives describe the condition precisely: they can see the value and feel the value, they just do not have the number.

This paper explains why no single ROI of AI exists and what to use instead: a portfolio of measures across productivity, value, and cost, each with its own role along the journey from adoption to realization. It shows where AI's value actually emerges, the leadership choices required to convert freed capacity into outcomes, and how to produce numbers a board can defend while continuing to invest before the proof arrives.

What's inside

  • Why We Mismeasure — Comfort metrics, phase confusion, and why adoption numbers get heard as answers to a question they were never asked.
  • The PVC Portfolio — Productivity, value, and cost as three pillars that together form a picture no single metric can, and how to keep the framework honest.
  • Where Value Emerges — The two forces AI unleashes, who gets to build once the old bottleneck is gone, and what breaks when the business cannot absorb what gets built.
  • Numbers a Board Can Defend — How to move from activity dashboards to decision velocity and business outcomes, with attribution leaders can stand behind.
Topics
AI · DevOps Metrics & Measurements · Leadership
Formats
epub · pdf
License
Creative Commons BY-NC-SA

About the authors

7 authors
Rodo AbadSenior Product Manager, John Deere

Affiliation as of 2026-09-04

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Jason CoxTechnology Executive

Affiliation as of 2026-09-30

Jason Cox is a technology executive, engineer, researcher, and longtime builder of large-scale systems. His work spans artificial intelligence, AI research and engineering, site reliability engineering, DevOps, developer experience, and enterprise technology, with a focus on turning emerging technologies into practical, scalable solutions. Jason is a frequent speaker who enjoys making complex ideas accessible, practical, and inspiring. He is a co-author of Investments Unlimited: A Novel About DevOps, Security, Audit Compliance, and Thriving in the Digital Age, an open-source contributor, and a firm believer that the future of technology is ultimately about amplifying people and elevating the human experience.

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Jeff GallimoreCTIO, Excella

Affiliation as of 2026-08-31

Jeff Gallimore is the chief technology and innovation officer and cofounder at Excella, a mid-size technology firm based in Arlington, VA. Gallimore started his career as a developer and DBA, then turned to the dark side by going into management. Now he lives vicariously through other engineers and reminisces about the good ol’ days when he spent most of his time in a code editor and command line rather than Outlook and Excel. Gallimore currently leads the team building Excella’s capabilities, leading the innovation activities, and managing the go-to-market offerings. He is also active in the technology community as a writer, speaker, co-chair of DevOpsDays DC, and advisor to IT Revolution. Regardless of the role, he keeps a passion for technology and how it can be used to help organizations win in the marketplace and people find the joy in their work.

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Betty JunodLimited Partner, Generationship

Affiliation as of 2026-09-07

Betty Junod is the Vice President of Product Marketing for VMware's Modern Apps and Management Business Group. Previously led product marketing for End User Computing. In between her VMware stints, she held marketing leadership positions at commercial open source companies like Docker and solo.io following the evolution of technology abstractions from virtualization, containers, to service mesh. She likes to hang out at the intersection of open source, software development, distributed systems, and enterprise architecture.

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Tapabrata PalSVP - Head of Developer Platforms, M&T Bank

Affiliation as of 2026-09-01

Dr. Tapabrata "Topo" Pal is a thought leader, keynote speaker, evangelist in the areas of DevSecOps, Continuous Delivery, Cloud Computing, Open Source Adoption and Digital Transformation. He is a hands-on developer and Open Source contributor. Topo has been leading and contributing to industry initiatives around automated governance in DevOps practices. Topo resides Richmond, Virginia with his wife and two children.

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Brian ScottCloud Engineering Leadership, Adobe

Affiliation as of 2026-08-31

Brian Scott is a seasoned technologist with over 25 years of experience in DevOps, SRE, and managing technical operations at scale in Cloud & Infrastructure. His career includes impactful roles at MySpace, OpenTable, and The Walt Disney Company. Currently, as a Principal Architect at Adobe, Brian supports engineering teams with technology, cloud, and AI governance and adoption while assisting senior leadership in solving enterprise-wide challenges and breaking down technical barriers.

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Max ReeleDirector of Delivery, Rise8

Affiliation as of 2026-09-04

Max Reele is the Director of Delivery at Rise8. Having been a digital transformation leader in the public sector for many years, his primary experience is in managing advanced technology programs to meet operational mission needs. During a twenty-year Air Force career, he was formerly the Service Lead at Defense Innovation Unit and Deputy Commander at the USAF’s Kessel Run software delivery organization.

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