by Douglas Hubbard | Dec 8, 2008 | Facilitating Calibrated Estimates, How To Measure Anything Blogs, News
The book shows that calibrated probability assessments really do work and it gives the reader some idea about how to employ them. But facilitating a workshop – with calibrated estimates or any other formal method – has its own challenges. Participants ask questions or make challenges about calibration or probabilities in general that sometimes confound reason. It’s amazing the sorts of ideas adults have learned about these topics.
Still, I’ve found that these kinds of challenges and my responses to them have become almost scripted over the years. The conceptions and misconceptions people have about these concepts fall into certain general categories and, therefore, so have my responses.
I thought about starting out with an attempt at an exhaustive list but, instead, I’ll wait for readers to come to me. Do you have any challenges employing this method in a workshop or, for that matter, do you have questions of your own about how such a method can work? Let us know and we’ll discuss it.
by Douglas Hubbard | Dec 8, 2008 | How To Measure Anything Blogs, News
If you have any questions about the downloads and how they are used for reference in the book, this is the place to post them. The downloads are meant to provide readers with examples that are already set up and, in many cases, can already use on practical problems. If you have questions about how they apply, feel free to bring it up.
This would also be a good place to make suggestions for more downloads that might help readers understand various concepts from the book. If you have an idea for a helpful example that would be of use to other readers, let me know and I will post it.
Thanks,
Doug Hubbard
by Douglas Hubbard | Dec 8, 2008 | How To Measure Anything Blogs, News
Yes, IT seems to stump a lot of people that try to measure its value. But the methods for measuring value don’t have to be that difficult. First, my readers will know that measuring the value means reducing your prior uncertainty about the value. My readers also know that the more your initial state of uncertainty, the more a few observations will tell you.
Contribute specific IT valuation problems here and we’ll talk about how to measure it!
Doug Hubbard
by Douglas Hubbard | Dec 8, 2008 | Bayesian vs. Frequentist?, Errata, How To Measure Anything Blogs, News
Under the Errata forum in a thread I called Second Print Run Corrections , one poster replied that he believed I incorrectly applied the term confidence interval in the book. I discuss several errors in that post in a reply in that thread. But it introduces another point of confusion apparently held by some about the difference between Bayesian vs. non-Bayesian methods in statistics and the epistemicologicaly philosophy debate of the frequentist vs. the subjectivist. I addressed it in another thread called Bayesian vs. Frequentist in this In the Clouds forum topic.
by Douglas Hubbard | Dec 8, 2008 | How To Measure Anything Blogs, News
Again, by email and on this site, someone has asked how to measure value when the purpose of a project, policy, investment, etc. is to save a human life. One poster mentioned this in a thread he called Ominus Measurement Problem under the New Measurement Challenge forum. I explained in the reply that a method called Value of a Statistical Life is one method for doing that, that the VSL is mentioned in the book, and that I’ve actually used it to compute the benefits of IT systems that were meant to manage vital issues of public health (e.g. safe drinking water, etc.). I also addressed one problem this poster said he has run into about the putting a value on certain government programs. The poster pointed out one senior official who said You tell me how much a soldier’s life is worth, then I’ll believe in this measurement #^%&. In the reply I argue how the position of the official is far from the moral highground his apparent indignation would suggest he has.
