SIRACon 2018 | Crowdsourced Probability Estimates: A Field Guide

SIRACon 2018 | Seattle, WA | February 7 & 8, 2018

Slides | Video (SIRA membership required)

Abstract:
Probability estimates are the cornerstone of any good risk assessment in which data is sparse or expensive to come by, and are often thought of as one of the best ways to supplement existing information with subject matter expertise. Many risk analysts, however, can run into issues when trying to integrate the opinions of many subject matter experts into a risk management program.

Some of these problems are: seemingly contradictory probability estimates, bias that can creep into results and the challenge of collecting and using large amounts of data. 

This talk covers the presenter's own experience in building a program within a company to crowdsource probability estimates from a varied group of subject matter experts, controlling for bias, weeding out those that aren’t exactly experts and scaling the program for large companies. Participants will be surprised to find that they already have many of the tools they need to get started, such as the ability to email surveys and simple models to create distributions from many the probability estimates they collect.