“What’s Your Number, Pardner?”

Abstract

Imagine that I need an important piece of information from you. It’s important because the information will be used in a business case analysis in which millions of dollars will potentially be allocated to a given project. The allocation will occur if the indicative figure of merit exceeds zero. It’s possible that the response you give me for the information I need could influence the decision to pursue the project or not, depending on the strength of the functional relationship of your information to the figure of merit. Likewise, assuming there is a strong relationship, the actual accrued value of the project could depend on the accuracy of your information in the following way, as illustrated in Figure 10-1