Estimation is an art I followed both in my profession and day to day life in general. At work, I became quite sought after for my "voodoo magic" of estimations where I made myself available to estimate on any work on which no one has any clue including myself, but while everyone backed off, I stood up as a hero, and survived all the time, shone like a star a few times. This is mainly because estimation is an art for me, and I believe one should never run away from the challenge.
Estimation needs to use an estimation model which uses parameters. These parameters need to be tied in the model to bring closest resemblence to the reality out there. Then we should assess the values of these parameters for the challenge at hand. In commercial estimations, one should take the estimation errors and actual execution errors into account, therefore, the final commitment should have contingencies built in to the tune of 30% give or take.
After the work is completed, one should go back and assess the variance of actuals to the estimates. The variance could be due to execution errors or improvements, or simply the estimations had errors which need to be tuned. The estimation errors could be in the model and parameter assessment. This distinction between actual performance variance Vs. estimation error is very political in the work environment, hence one does not attempt such clarity going forward.
Since, my work challenges forced me to become a "Voodoo Magician" as I signed up to estimate anything given to me even though I was no expert having no clues. This was because there were no one else to take up the challenge otherwise.
So, I decided to unleash my voodoo magic on predicting final point table standings of the teams for IPL 2022. As I had confessed before, I am no cricket expert, but my estimation model would help an expert to project better. Even a so called expert will go wrong significantly in these contexts, hence I had no qualms in attempting my projections.
I have given my tuning of the estimation model with corrected parameter values so that it comes in alignment with actual performance at the end of the season. I have also given below the original estimates. The values that were changed in retrofitting are highlighted in yellow.
You may question that my estimation model in itself needs tuning. May be so. But, given that one needs to do estimates being an idiot, one should start somewhere and then improve the art as experience assimilates. Here, I have not questioned my original estimation model, which is pretty much clear in the worksheet.
Values given are as follows in computation:
A+ = 1.2
A = 1
B+ = 0.9
B = 0.8
C+ = 0.7
C = 0.6
Team strength is estimated by using estimated strengths of front line batting, middle order batting, tail end batting, bowling, fielding and benchstrength with appropriate weightages as shown. Finally, the team leadership and management maturity is used as a multiplier to the unadjusted team strength.
Destiny is the dance of space and time. Projection of space variables (players, contexts, connections) against time variables (past, present, future) helps one to predict the destiny too. This is my retirement hobby, that has evolved from my estimation expeditions during my career, some of which were glorious many a time, so I can not let go this temptation till my end.
- Nataraja Upadhya
