Good read over at Read/Write web and the Software Abstractions Blog. Quick summary.
- Prediction Markets are a great mechanism to extract knowledge already present within the organization and to make better predictions
- These markets highlight both the collective wisdom which no one person knows individually, and common knowledge which no one is willing to talk about openly
- They work properly only when they have an adequate number of knowledgeable participants who work individually
- Participants must have reasonable incentives (financial or social) to make their efforts worthwhile
- If the group is large enough, the ratio of experts vs amateurs does not have much impact; often, the real experts are unexpected
- The results of a Prediction Market are probabilities; they must be confirmed through other, external, means
Loved the idea of tracking team progress against a goal using collective wisdom and predictive markets theory. This should be a feature in all project management software.