A "Rumsfeldian" visualizer. Neat!
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/03/rumsfeld...
Introducing Guesstimate, a Spreadsheet for Things That Aren’t Certain
21–30 of 96 posts
Re: Introducing Guesstimate, a Spreadsheet for Things That Aren’t Certain
#22A "Rumsfeldian" visualizer. Neat! http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/03/rumsfeld...
I always find it strange that people found that thing Rumsfeld said dumb, bizarre or (worse) his own invention [1].
Those are standard epistemological distinctions, known (and written about) since at least the times of Aristotle.
[1] (I mean the philosophical essence of what he said -- not that he didn't tried to use it an an excuse for BS).
Re: Introducing Guesstimate, a Spreadsheet for Things That Aren’t Certain
#23What fun - I did a monte carlo estimate a few years back when trying to determine what purchases price of house my girlfriend and I could afford. It depended on probable interest rate, how much my old house would sell for, etc. It'd be interesting to see how simply it could be modeled in this.
That seems like a great fit.
A few weeks back I used the tool to help a friend decide which mortgage option to take for his house. One house has a slightly lower APR than the other, but was a had a higher assistance fee.
After fiddling with it, it looked like the one with the lower assistance fee was the better option. But perhaps more important, it didn't seem like it made a big difference; perhaps around $200 after 10 years. This was a good indication that the choice didn't really matter; that it wasn't something to spend over a few hours worrying about.
Re: Introducing Guesstimate, a Spreadsheet for Things That Aren’t Certain
#24I like it. I had to do a strategy session with a client a couple of weeks ago and we needed to estimate how much the strategy was likely to cost over the next few months the. We had quite a few variables to work with though. This would have been handy in such a scenario I presume? We knew what are components and the ranges were.
Re: Introducing Guesstimate, a Spreadsheet for Things That Aren’t Certain
#25Awesome! I use Crystal Ball ( http://www.oracle.com/us/products/applications/crystalball/o... ) with triangular distributions and Monte Carlo for software project cost estimation. Crystal Ball costs thousands of dollars so I will be following this with interest.
You might also find LiquidPlanner (http://www.liquidplanner.com/features/#why-liquidplanner) interesting for software estimation. The scheduling engine built entirely around the notion of ranged estimates driving probabilistic schedules.
Re: Introducing Guesstimate, a Spreadsheet for Things That Aren’t Certain
#26I like it. I had to do a strategy session with a client a couple of weeks ago and we needed to estimate how much the strategy was likely to cost over the next few months the. We had quite a few variables to work with though. This would have been handy in such a scenario I presume? We knew what are components and the ranges were.
I believe it would be handy, but it depends on the size. Right now I think it's reasonably fast and intuitive for models of around 3 to 40 metrics(variables). If you have more it could get slower, especially if many of them have to be recalculated at once.
I suggest trying it out. If nothing else, you may be able to begin with very simple models of the most important variables.
Re: Introducing Guesstimate, a Spreadsheet for Things That Aren’t Certain
#27I wasn't expecting this to go on hnews yet, but happy to take any questions!
<3 this! Are there any plans for some type of export utility, e.g. some type of JSON serialization of a finished model?
Re: Introducing Guesstimate, a Spreadsheet for Things That Aren’t Certain
#28This is a really great interface, and cool idea.
You might consider upping the run count, or maybe narrowing your bins for the visualization. Either way, it's great to see more tools embracing probability and uncertainty like this.
Re: Introducing Guesstimate, a Spreadsheet for Things That Aren’t Certain
#29I like it. I had to do a strategy session with a client a couple of weeks ago and we needed to estimate how much the strategy was likely to cost over the next few months the. We had quite a few variables to work with though. This would have been handy in such a scenario I presume? We knew what are components and the ranges were.
I believe it would be handy, but it depends on the size. Right now I think it's reasonably fast and intuitive for models of around 3 to 40 metrics(variables). If you have more it could get slower, especially if many of them have to be recalculated at once. I suggest trying it out. If nothing else, you may be able to begin with very simple models of the most important variables.
It was around 6-8 metrics so i guess it would be fine?
Re: Introducing Guesstimate, a Spreadsheet for Things That Aren’t Certain
#30I wasn't expecting this to go on hnews yet, but happy to take any questions!
I love the tool and tweeted about it yesterday. It's brilliant, I love it, excited to try some more complex probabilistic distributions.
Only request would be to allow for private spreadsheets. I can download and run the code locally but this would help many people who are less tech savvy.
Great product - looking forward to seeing how it evolves!