Test about assessment
Here and here the idea of a collective mind is discussed. Supposedly, if you plant 1000 monkeys, they will write a war over the 1000 years and the world will be enough for a lot of different people to predict something, then the average result will be quite true. The idea is clear and works well if we are talking about things that are understandable and familiar to appraisers. For example, about the amount of something.
But what if the question is asked about an unfamiliar area?
Or even so, let's move on to IT: let's say you are an IT manager and you are asked to quickly evaluate the cost and timing of a new project. This project is not similar to previous ones. What does the manager do? He's guessing. No matter how experienced he is, he wonders, because does not have time to realistically assess the cost of the implementation of the unfamiliar project
There is an excellent book by S. McConnell. How much does a software project cost (and here is the author’s website ) - there is an excellent test in it that will help you to make sure that such quick assessments of unclear things are futile. At first glance, this test does not seem to be about IT at all, but in fact such fortune telling is what the IT manager is doing with quick guessing of the terms and budgets of an unfamiliar project.
You can take this test yourself by printing it out or simply writing your answers on a piece of paper. But it is more interesting if you print it out and let it pass to your colleagues - managers, programmers - to anyone, to collect statistics. You will be greatly surprised by the results.
I conducted such a test in a company where I had worked before - the results coincided with those that McConnell predicted.
Do not read the text given after the questions before you pass the test - there are answers and analysis.
So, the test:
')
Please carefully read and follow these guidelines:
For each question, write down the lower and upper limits, which, in your opinion, provide a 90% chance of including the correct value. Try to avoid over-narrowing or widening ranges. Make them wide enough so that your common sense ranges with 90% certainty to include the correct answer. Please do not look for answers in reference books - the test should test your assessment skills, not the ability to work with literature. You must answer every question, the missed answer is considered incorrect. The test takes up to 10 minutes to complete.
1. The temperature on the surface of the sun: from ___________ to ___________
2. The breadth of Shanghai from ___________ to ___________
3. The area of the continent of Asia from ___________ to ___________
4. Year of birth of Alexander the Great from ___________ to ___________
5. The total value of the American currency, which was in circulation in 2004 from ___________ to ___________
6. The total volume of the great lakes from ___________ to ___________
7. World box office film "Titanic" from ___________ to ___________
8. The total length of the Pacific Coastline is from ___________ to ___________
9. The number of titles of books published in the United States from 1776 from ___________ to ___________
10. Maximum recorded weight of a blue whale from ___________ to ___________
Do not read further if you want to take the test yourself! First go through it - then read below.
If everyone had succeeded in a 90% probability (as written in the TZ for the test and as customers usually require), then everyone would have a maximum of 1 wrong answer. However, on average, people give only 1-3 correct answers to this test!
This suggests that "estimates by 90%," conducted without the use of quantitative methods, are actually reliable by about 25% - this is confirmed by industry-wide statistics on the number of projects completed on time - the same 25%.
Those who answered correctly 7-8 questions, to the question "how", answer that they have chosen a wide range. However, in human nature laid the desire to narrow ranges.
To the question “why did you lower the ranges,” people basically answer that it makes them make a sense of professional pride, because it seems that a narrower range is more professional, but this is not quite true - the correct answer is professional, not a narrow range.
Answers:
1. 6,000C
2. 31 degrees north
3. 44,390,000 square kilometers
4. 356 BCE
5. $ 719.9 billion
6. 23,000 cubic kilometers
7. $ 1,835 billion
8. 135,663 kilometers
9. 22 million
10. 170,000 kilograms or 170 metric tons
More about the answers and comments with graphs can be found here .
But what if the question is asked about an unfamiliar area?
Or even so, let's move on to IT: let's say you are an IT manager and you are asked to quickly evaluate the cost and timing of a new project. This project is not similar to previous ones. What does the manager do? He's guessing. No matter how experienced he is, he wonders, because does not have time to realistically assess the cost of the implementation of the unfamiliar project
There is an excellent book by S. McConnell. How much does a software project cost (and here is the author’s website ) - there is an excellent test in it that will help you to make sure that such quick assessments of unclear things are futile. At first glance, this test does not seem to be about IT at all, but in fact such fortune telling is what the IT manager is doing with quick guessing of the terms and budgets of an unfamiliar project.
You can take this test yourself by printing it out or simply writing your answers on a piece of paper. But it is more interesting if you print it out and let it pass to your colleagues - managers, programmers - to anyone, to collect statistics. You will be greatly surprised by the results.
I conducted such a test in a company where I had worked before - the results coincided with those that McConnell predicted.
Do not read the text given after the questions before you pass the test - there are answers and analysis.
So, the test:
')
Please carefully read and follow these guidelines:
For each question, write down the lower and upper limits, which, in your opinion, provide a 90% chance of including the correct value. Try to avoid over-narrowing or widening ranges. Make them wide enough so that your common sense ranges with 90% certainty to include the correct answer. Please do not look for answers in reference books - the test should test your assessment skills, not the ability to work with literature. You must answer every question, the missed answer is considered incorrect. The test takes up to 10 minutes to complete.
1. The temperature on the surface of the sun: from ___________ to ___________
2. The breadth of Shanghai from ___________ to ___________
3. The area of the continent of Asia from ___________ to ___________
4. Year of birth of Alexander the Great from ___________ to ___________
5. The total value of the American currency, which was in circulation in 2004 from ___________ to ___________
6. The total volume of the great lakes from ___________ to ___________
7. World box office film "Titanic" from ___________ to ___________
8. The total length of the Pacific Coastline is from ___________ to ___________
9. The number of titles of books published in the United States from 1776 from ___________ to ___________
10. Maximum recorded weight of a blue whale from ___________ to ___________
Do not read further if you want to take the test yourself! First go through it - then read below.
If everyone had succeeded in a 90% probability (as written in the TZ for the test and as customers usually require), then everyone would have a maximum of 1 wrong answer. However, on average, people give only 1-3 correct answers to this test!
This suggests that "estimates by 90%," conducted without the use of quantitative methods, are actually reliable by about 25% - this is confirmed by industry-wide statistics on the number of projects completed on time - the same 25%.
Those who answered correctly 7-8 questions, to the question "how", answer that they have chosen a wide range. However, in human nature laid the desire to narrow ranges.
To the question “why did you lower the ranges,” people basically answer that it makes them make a sense of professional pride, because it seems that a narrower range is more professional, but this is not quite true - the correct answer is professional, not a narrow range.
Answers:
1. 6,000C
2. 31 degrees north
3. 44,390,000 square kilometers
4. 356 BCE
5. $ 719.9 billion
6. 23,000 cubic kilometers
7. $ 1,835 billion
8. 135,663 kilometers
9. 22 million
10. 170,000 kilograms or 170 metric tons
More about the answers and comments with graphs can be found here .
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/37040/
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