What is the best place to run a private prediction market?

Question

From wikipedia:

Prediction markets are speculative markets created for the purpose of making predictions. Assets are created whose final cash value is tied to a particular event (e.g., will the next US president be a Republican) or parameter (e.g., total sales next quarter). The current market prices can then be interpreted as predictions of the probability of the event or the expected value of the parameter. Prediction markets are thus structured as betting exchanges, without any risk for the bookmaker.

I've been toying with the idea of introducing such a market in the current project I'm on. We have a fixed deadline, and I'm considering creating a market for predicting how much we'll be able to deliver (number of implemented use cases) by the end of the iteration.

I'm looking for a "prediction exchange" to run this at. So far I've only tested Inklingmarkets.com, which looks pretty good, but the fact that I can't easily invite people to a private market who are not already registered users sort of renders it useless. I'm pretty convinced that if people have to first sign up on their own, and then I have to go in and invite them, we'll never get this up and running. So, I'm still looking, and my criteria are as follows:

• it should be free, or at least cheap
• it should be easy to use / have good explanations of the actions you can do. Buying and selling fictitious stocks, not to mention shorting, can be hard concepts to grasp
• it should allow for private markets
• it should be easy to sign up, and it should be possible to invite people to your market who are not already using the system (Inklingmarkets: epic FAIL on your part)

Any suggestions? And if you have other thoughts on/experiences with using prediction markets inside a company, please share!

Answer 1

My suggestion would be to stop stuffing around on this rubbish and get on with doing your project or your "fixed deadline" will soon be your "missed deadline".

I'm astounded at how exactly you think this will benefit either your project or the company you work for. Feel free to rebut (or downvote) as you see fit.

Answer 2

A prediction market is a pretty good way to get honest feedback about the state of the project. People place bets with their own money on the end date of the project. It's proven to be better than most polls with regard to predicting many things, particularly election outcomes. You might want to talk with some of the originators of the technique to see if they have source available or would be willing to run a market for you. You can find the Iowa Electronic Market at http://www.biz.uiowa.edu/iem/. You might want to look at the Wikipedia entry for Wisdom of Crowds for ideas on other ways to do this.

Answer 3

I think this would be quite useful, especially early in a project. The company I work for is notorious for unrealistically short schedules such that no one actually believes them anymore. Yet management continues to plan around them, which results in rushed planning upfront and painfully long death marches. Most of the staff make their own personal predictions as to when they think it will be finished, but those estimates are not gathered. If asked personally about a schedule, you either feel pressured to guess too early, or you sandbag. In either case, a prediction market helps defend against those temptations because your profit depends on how close you are to the actual date.

I'd envision the following: you define the general desired scope of the project and the general scope of the staffing planned for it. You could also put in some of the major milestones (I'm avoiding getting down to the minute details). Then let your staff make bets on completion dates. As the project moves along or is evolves, everyone can alter their bets and the schedule updates itself accordingly.