Selection Of A Consensus From A Plurality Of Ideas

• US 20080254436A1
• Filed: 11/05/2007
• Published: 10/16/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 11/16/2006
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Watertown Software, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Watertown Software, Inc.
• Inventors: Piwowarski, Mark M., Morgia, Michael A., Morgia, Alex M., Gaus, John P., Davis, Shawn M., Roland, Ralph E., Fontana, Pat A.
• Application Number:
  US11/934,990
• Publication Number:
  US 20080254436A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 434/362
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management

Abstract

A method of forming a consensus from a collection of ideas is disclosed. The ideas may be generated by a collection of participants, or may be provided to the collection of participants. The ideas are divided into non-exclusive groups for evaluation, with each group being provided to a participant for voting. Each participant chooses a favorite idea from the group, or selects a first and second choice, or a first, second and third choice. The votes are tallied, and for each idea a “win percentage” is calculated, which is defined as the ratio of the number of groups in which a particular idea wins the voting, divided by the number of groups in which a particular idea appears. Each idea that has a “win percentage” that exceeds a particular threshold is passed on to one or more subsequent rounds of voting. If desired, the voting may continue until a single idea is chosen as the consensus. In some rounds of voting, the groups are configured so that a participant does not vote on his/her own idea. In the first round of voting, the groups are configured so that no two ideas compete against each other more than once. A formulaic template is provided for generation of the groups, based on the number of ideas, the number of participants, and the number of ideas per group. In some embodiments, the template and number of ideas per group may be formulated using the sequence of integers known as the Mian-Chowla sequence.

Claims

1. A method for selecting a consensus from a plurality of initial ideas, comprising:

forming a plurality of initial idea groups from the plurality of initial ideas, each initial idea group comprising a subset of the plurality of initial ideas;

presenting the initial idea groups to a plurality of participants, each initial idea group being presented to at least one participant;

collecting a plurality of initial rankings from the plurality of participants, each initial ranking corresponding to exactly one of the plurality of participants;

determining a plurality of initial win rates from the plurality of initial rankings, each initial win rate corresponding to exactly one of the plurality of initial ideas;

comparing the plurality of initial win rates to an initial threshold win rate;

forming a plurality of secondary ideas as a subset of the plurality of initial ideas, wherein an initial idea is included in the plurality of secondary ideas if its corresponding initial win rate exceeds the initial threshold win rate;

forming a plurality of secondary idea groups from the plurality of secondary ideas, each secondary idea group comprising a subset of the plurality of secondary ideas;

presenting the secondary idea groups to the plurality of participants, each secondary idea group being presented to at least one participant;

collecting a plurality of secondary rankings from the plurality of participants, each secondary ranking corresponding to exactly one of the plurality of participants;

determining a plurality of secondary win rates from the plurality of secondary rankings, each secondary win rate corresponding to exactly one of the plurality of secondary ideas;

comparing the plurality of secondary win rates to a secondary threshold win rate; and

forming at least one tertiary idea as a subset of the plurality of secondary ideas, wherein at least one secondary idea forms the at least one tertiary idea if its corresponding secondary win rate exceeds the secondary threshold win rate.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein any two particular ideas from the plurality appear together in no more than one of the initial idea groups.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of initial ideas is generated by the participants themselves.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of initial rankings includes only a first choice for each participant.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of initial win rates includes the number of times an initial idea is chosen from the initial idea groups in which the initial idea is present, divided by the number of initial idea groups in which the initial idea is present.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the plurality of initial win rates further includes a weighting for each choice within a particular ranking.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one tertiary idea comprises a consensus.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one tertiary idea comprises a plurality of ideas from which a consensus is chosen.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising compensating for competition that is too strong or too weak.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising overriding particular participants that produce rankings sufficiently different from the consensus.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising conjoining particular initial ideas that are deemed equivalent by the plurality of participants.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

attaching a supplemental idea to a particular initial idea; and

including the supplemental idea in each secondary idea group that contains the particular initial idea.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

collecting a plurality of divisional votes from the plurality of participants;

dividing the plurality of participants into at least two exclusive divided groups, the dividing based at least on the collected plurality of division votes; and

collecting a plurality of first divided group rankings from at least one of the exclusive divided groups but not another of the exclusive divided groups.

14. A method for selecting an idea, comprising:

collecting a plurality of ideas from a plurality of participants, each idea originated by a particular participant;

grouping the plurality of ideas into a plurality of initial idea groups, each initial idea group corresponding to a particular participant and excluding the idea originated by the particular participant;

distributing the plurality of initial idea groups to the corresponding plurality of participants; and

collecting a plurality of initial idea group ratings from the plurality of participants.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein no two ideas appear together in more than one initial idea group.

16. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

forming a plurality of second-round ideas from the plurality of ideas, the second-round ideas comprising the ideas that received the highest initial idea group ratings;

grouping the plurality of second-round ideas into a plurality of second-round idea groups, each second-round idea group corresponding to a particular participant;

distributing the plurality of second-round idea groups to the corresponding plurality of participants; and

collecting a plurality of second-round idea group ratings from the plurality of participants.

17. A method for generating a template for dividing a plurality of ideas into groups, each group of ideas to be distributed to each of a plurality of participants, comprising:

selecting a number of ideas per group in response to the number of participants in the plurality;

denoting the number of ideas per group as m;

defining a plurality of first participant'"'"'s idea numbers as the first m Mian-Chowla numbers; and

recursively defining a plurality of (i+1)th participant'"'"'s idea numbers as the plurality of ith participant'"'"'s idea numbers incremented by 1 and modulo the number of ideas in the plurality.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the selecting comprises:

providing a number of participants;

denoting the lesser of the number of participants and the number of ideas in the plurality as p;

providing a Mian-Chowla number a_n, the Mian-Chowla number being the nth integer in the Mian-Chowla sequence;

forming a quantity (2a_n−

1);

solving for n to be the largest integer that satisfies (2a_n−

1)≧

p; and

setting the number of ideas per group to be n.

19. The method of claim 17, further comprising assigning each idea number randomly to one of the plurality of ideas.

20. A method for testing a ranking procedure, comprising:

providing a full collection of ideas having an intrinsic order;

parsing the full collection of ideas into idea groups, each idea group containing a subset of the full group of ideas;

casting a vote for a favorite idea from each idea group;

tallying the votes;

ranking the full collection of ideas based on the tallied votes; and

comparing the ranking to the intrinsic order.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein the vote-casting step comprises selecting a highest-scoring idea from each idea group, the scoring being based on the intrinsic order of the ideas and an error factor to account for human factors.

22. A method of editing, comprising:

distributing an initial idea to a group of participants;

collecting from each participant in the group a revision trigger vote;

tallying the revision trigger votes from the group of participants; and

if the tallied revision trigger votes exceed a revision trigger threshold;

providing a revised idea to the group of participants;

collecting from each participant in the group a revision approval vote corresponding to a favorite selection between the initial idea and the revised idea;

tallying the revision approval votes from the group of participants; and

replacing the initial idea with the revised idea if the tallied revision approval votes exceed a revision approval threshold.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein the revision is provided by an author of the initial idea.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein the author of the initial idea is a participant in the group.

25. The method of claim 22, wherein the revision is provided by the group of participants.