Predicting the outcome before the project starts – it’s possible!

IMT

With Best Value Procurement you select and contract the expert supplier who has, in advance, demonstrated to be the best at realising your project objectives with as few surprises as possible during the execution of the project. The theory behind the model is called IMT: Information Measurement Theory.

Key concepts

One of the most important concepts in IMT is the understanding of an event:

• An event is something that happens that takes time.
• Each event has initial conditions, the time at which the event takes place and final conditions.
• The more information you have about the initial conditions, the easier it is to predict the end conditions (= outcome of the event).
• In theory: if we assume that a single event can have multiple outcomes; what happens as we obtain more information about the event prior to the event?
• If we are able to get more information about the event before the event takes place, it should be easier to predict what the future of that event will look like.

Therefore: if we would have all the information regarding an event before the event starts, we also know in advance how the event will end.

Of course it is practically impossible to have 100% information about something that has yet to take place, but it is important to understand the concept of gathering critical information about the event prior to the event.

Why is understanding of the ‘event concept’ important and what is the relationship with BVP?

When we look at the purchase of a project (an event), this IMT concept also applies: the more information we gather about expert suppliers before we conclude the contract, the easier it becomes for us to predict the success of the project result in the future.

That is why the following applies here as well: the greatest effort is made before the event (the project) starts, not during the execution, as the initial conditions are already fixed in the execution! Recognizing the expert supplier who has shown to be the best in advance that he or she is likely to be able to achieve your project objectives is the key to success, not ‘managing’ the supplier during the execution.