Coaching practices for Forecast Scoring Calibration

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Forecast Scoring Calibration, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

  • I make calls about how things will go all the time, but I never write them down or check them after
  • I make calls all the time but I never write them down or check them later, so my confidence is just a feeling that floats free
  • I want to actually know whether my gut is any good — when I feel sure about something, am I right that often, or am I just confident?
  • When a prediction of mine blows up, I either spiral into thinking the whole thing is pointless or I just shrug and forget it
  • My real decisions take months to resolve and matter too much for me to score them honestly, so I never get clean reps

Practices that may help

  1. Score your own past predictions to calibrate your outside-view use
    Keep a forecast log and score it — you cannot improve calibration without feedback on where you were over- or under-confident.
    The Outside View
  2. Maintain a scored prediction log
    Record predictions with explicit probabilities and score them when they resolve.
    Calibration Training
  3. Calibration Training
    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.
  4. Practice probability calibration
    Regularly make probabilistic predictions and track your accuracy across many of them.
    Hindsight Bias: Why Everything Seems Obvious in Retrospect
  5. Treat forecasting accuracy as a skill that improves with practice
    Take prediction errors as performance feedback, not as proof that forecasting is futile.
    Superforecasting
  6. 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
  7. Conduct post-project debriefs to contribute to the class data
    Record actual vs. forecast outcomes honestly — this builds the reference class that future forecasts depend on.
    Reference Class Forecasting
  8. Practice probabilistic calibration by tracking your predictions
    Assign explicit probability estimates to your predictions and track whether they come true at the right rate.
    Base-Rate Neglect: Why We Ignore the Odds
  9. Forecast a distribution, not a point estimate
    Represent your forecast as a range of likely outcomes, not a single predicted number.
    Reference Class Forecasting
  10. Calibration practice
    Predict your performance before each retrieval test, then compare prediction to outcome.
    Self-Regulated Learning: Taking Control of How You Learn

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