Coaching practices for Appraisal Accuracy
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Appraisal Accuracy, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- I size up what something’s worth and then commit right at that number as if my read is exactly right
- I build my estimate from my own optimistic story first and only glance at how long these things usually take at the very end as a sanity check
- When I’d swear I know roughly where a number lands, the real answer is constantly outside the range I’d have bet on
- I catch myself shaving down the estimate I’m about to present
- I call myself good at reading how things will go in my field, but when I’m honest I only ever remember the calls I got right
Practices that may help
- Discount your estimate to create a margin
If you think something is worth X, only commit at a meaningful discount to X.
Margin of Safety - Anchor on the base rate before adding inside-view details
Start your forecast from the class median, then adjust — do not start from your narrative and adjust to the base rate.
Reference Class Forecasting - Practice confidence interval estimation
Estimate ranges for factual quantities and check how often the true value falls within your range.
Calibration Training - Distinguish cognitive optimism bias from strategic misrepresentation
Recognize that some forecast inflation is genuine bias and some is deliberate spin — they require different fixes.
Reference Class Forecasting - Calibration practice
Predict your performance before each retrieval test, then compare prediction to outcome.
Self-Regulated Learning: Taking Control of How You Learn - Track the accuracy of your domain predictions
Keep a record of what you predicted in your area of claimed expertise and score it.
The Dunning-Kruger Effect, Understood Clearly - Log actual vs. estimated time for every task
Build a personal database of your own estimation errors so you can calibrate future predictions.
The Planning Fallacy — Why Your Estimates Are Always Wrong - Beware false precision in forecasts and models
Treat any precise probability or quantitative forecast with explicit suspicion about whether the model fits the domain.
The Ludic Fallacy: When You Mistake Real Life for a Game - Build calibration reps with low-stakes trivia and almanac questions
Use factual trivia questions as a practice ground for calibration — outcomes resolve immediately and the stakes are zero.
Calibration Training - Practice probability calibration
Regularly make probabilistic predictions and track your accuracy across many of them.
Hindsight Bias: Why Everything Seems Obvious in Retrospect
Related concerns
- Estimation Accuracy Tracking
Compare your Fermi estimates to actual figures when you can, and use the gap to improve future estimates.
Track your estimates and calibrate
- Estimation Error Buffer
Test your estimate against the clearly too-high and too-low bounds to calibrate your range.
Sanity-check against known extremes
- How To Avoid Scale Errors
Catch order-of-magnitude errors by ensuring your units are consistent across the estimate.
Check units and scales for consistency
- How To Discount Estimates
If you think something is worth X, only commit at a meaningful discount to X.
Discount your estimate to create a margin
- Planning Calibration
Calibration training teaches you to match your stated confidence levels to your actual accuracy: if you say "70% confident," roughly 70% of those claims should turn out to be correct. Tetlock’s forecasting research and probability training studies show calibration is trainable with practice and feedback — the evidence here is specific and replicable.
- Prediction Accuracy
Assign explicit probability estimates to your predictions and track whether they come true at the right rate.
Practice probabilistic calibration by tracking your predictions
Describe your situation in your own words to search the complete practice library.