I believe that there was something about a similar approach in a paper “Risk at a Turning Point?” by Andrew Stirling. He argued that analysis of risk should group all the risks as a vector valued quantity, rather than a scalar. That should be just a valid in this more general context: risks, costs and opportunities of a particular scenario can then be represented on a big vector, and each interest group applies their own method to bring it down to a scalar value (or probablility distribution) along the “support/oppose” continuum.
Andrew was focusing on the fact that generally the one to do the estimate was a government or a corporation that would apply their own method to get from the vector to the scalar, and only the scalar was announced. If the full vector was announced, however, it was easier for groups with different values to come up with their own estimate of the scalar “support/oppose” distribution. As well, they could easily add extra elements to the vector (things like “the project is an eyesore”), and see how that changed their estimate, rather than adding it as an extra and having those fruitless “the project is an eyesore” vs “yes, but it’ll bring in cash” debates.
The vector could be what little ol’ dame rationality writes down in her notebook.
I believe that there was something about a similar approach in a paper “Risk at a Turning Point?” by Andrew Stirling. He argued that analysis of risk should group all the risks as a vector valued quantity, rather than a scalar. That should be just a valid in this more general context: risks, costs and opportunities of a particular scenario can then be represented on a big vector, and each interest group applies their own method to bring it down to a scalar value (or probablility distribution) along the “support/oppose” continuum.
Andrew was focusing on the fact that generally the one to do the estimate was a government or a corporation that would apply their own method to get from the vector to the scalar, and only the scalar was announced. If the full vector was announced, however, it was easier for groups with different values to come up with their own estimate of the scalar “support/oppose” distribution. As well, they could easily add extra elements to the vector (things like “the project is an eyesore”), and see how that changed their estimate, rather than adding it as an extra and having those fruitless “the project is an eyesore” vs “yes, but it’ll bring in cash” debates.
The vector could be what little ol’ dame rationality writes down in her notebook.