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With reference to Weight of Ox, Galton discovered that average guess was awfully close to the actual weight. Sporadically, it makes sense to go with guess from crowd intelligence, specifically when there is no scale, or when the measurement is expensive or when it is time-consuming for accurate measurement. Few considerations and points to be factored before we rely on this method would include the below pointers: Diversity of opinion Independence of opinion Trusting the group to be fair in terms of giving the opinion Should be cautious of Groupthink Consideration on activity time Distribution of expert panel is important to avoid dominance and skewness Diffusion of responsibility We still use similar versions of Wisdom of Crowds in organizations. Ref 1: When we do Story Point Estimation in Agile development During development, it is critical and vital to plan budget, time and resource required to complete the module in every sprint. Entire project is broken into different levels and function point analysis and story points is assigned to each user stories. Story point estimation gives rough estimation (more like a guess) for the product backlog items with relative sizing. This is a comparative analysis. Key estimators include developers, testers, scrum master, product owner and other related stake holders. Some of the common estimating methods are T – shirt Sizing Using Fibonacci Series Animal Sizing Typical measures used in T – shirt sizing comprise XS, S, M, L, XL, XXL; In Fibonacci sequence measures includes numerical 1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,55, etc.; In Animal Sizing team uses Ant, bee, cat, dog, lion, horse, elephant, etc. It’s fun to use animals instead of numbers Based on the efforts required, points are assigned for the stories during planning. Quick and effective way of using crowd intelligence while doing story point estimation. Ref 2: Delphi interview technique This method relies on expert panels decision, considering opinion from experts more like that of getting crowd intelligence in wisdom of crowd Ref 3: Group Decision Support System (GDSS) Many organizations use this method for idea generation, to select optimal solution, for voting and so on. By using this technique, it easy to arrive at solution for complex problems Other effective methods and applications includes below, Brain storming Nominal group technique Devil’s advocacy Fish bowling Didactic interaction Closing quotes to go with Wisdom of Crowd.