How good is good enough? Information quality needs for management decision making

There are many aspects to information quality, and everything from measurement method documentation to data entry errors to metadata documentation falls under this topic. Even with good data quality assurance procedures in place, uncertainty exists because of random variation in the population and the sampling design utilized to collect the data. If data are used as the basis for model projections, further uncertainty is introduced due to model prediction errors. Adequacy of information quality can only be evaluated in the context for which it is used. The focus of this chapter deals with the uncertainty in information and its impact on decision making. The consequences of management decisions can only be assessed through consideration of both the cost of obtaining more precise information as well as the cost of making a poor decision.