6. Mathematics for the OVAX Table
FORMULAE AND VARIABLES
Many of the concepts introduced in my previous blogs can be translated into mathematical variables and formulae which are explained below.
The main formulae are:
- (1) Vach = Vimp x Vgap x VApot x VAeffo x Aprob
- (2) VApot = VAsuit x VAtal (or VApot = VAsuit x VAvuln, if VAsuit is negative, i.e. the Action goes against the Value in question, giving a negative VApot)
where variables have the following meaning:
VAach: The level (-100% to 100%) at which your eXperience resulting from a chosen Action achieves a given Value, e.g. 100% if you are totally satisfied that, by devoting all the time needed by that Action, you have achieved your Value at its fullest. If the Action achieves the opposite of your Value, then the VAach can be negative, down to -100% (e.g. suppose your Value is to save money, and your Action results in spending money, or your Value is to improve the eco-system, and your Action creates pollution).
Vimp: the personal importance that you give to a given Value, up to 100% if that Value is most important for you, down to -100% if you are totally against that Value.
Vgap: the personal gap in your life (0 to 100%) for the Value in question, e.g. your Value is to teach, and you have just a few opportunities to teach, so that you assess your teaching gap to be 50%.
VApot: this is the potential that a given Action offers towards the achievement of a given Value, based on some objective assessment of the suitability of the Action for that Value, and your talents (subjective) for exploiting that suitability. This level ranges from -100% if the Action goes against that Value, to 100% if the Action has the best potential to achieve that Value. This level of VApot can be a guesstimate made by the decision maker, or calculated by formula (2) shown above.
VAsuit: this is the objective suitability of a given Action to achieve a given Value (e.g. practicing a sport is almost always suitable to gain physical fitness, giving VAsuit=90%; eating in good restaurants goes moderately against the fitness Value, giving VAsuit=-50%)
VAtal: your talents in practicing a given Action in connection with a given Value, e.g. after joining a club, your talents to make friends in that club (0 to 100%).
VAvuln: in the case of an Action that goes against one of your Values, this is the level of the resulting damage, e.g. when joining a certain club, your Value "to save money" is negatively affected by the level of the club fees (VAsuit is negative). If the club fees are high, you may assess your VAvuln=80%. This is a personal measure of your vulnerability in this experience, e.g. 100 if I need to meet a full high expenditure, or maybe 70 if you can get a discount, 0 if you are not affected at all (i.e. the club fees are negligible for you).
VAeffo: this is a subjective measure of time and effort that you personally devote (or intend to devote) to a given Action in order to achieve a given Value. For example, the Action of joining a given club may achieve the Value "to make new friends" to the extent in which you attend the club's social events. If you attend all events, your VAeffo=100%. It may be 10% if you rarely attend. (Range 0 to 100%).
Aprob: the experiences resulting from a given action, when trying to forecast what will happen at a future time, may be uncertain, under the realm of probabilities. For example, one of your contemplated Actions may be: "Preparing and applying for a teaching job". The outcome may be: Success (e.g. Aprob=80) or Failure (e.g. Aprob=20), on the basis of your personal qualifications, etc. Then, the OVAX table used to forecast future experiences, and make decisions on the basis of expected outcomes (estimated VAach's), will need two columns for each proposed Action, one for Success, one for Failure (or several columns if several outcomes are possible from any one Action). In each case, the VAach for the Action in the column will be the statistical expected value, which is obtained by multiplying the VAach of the "outcome-if-achieved", by the probability of the outcome (Aprob). When the OVAX table is used for analysing past Actions, the experience boxes contain what has actually happened, then Aprob in formula (1) will be 100%.
DECISIONS BASED ON NUMBERS
The results of formulae (1) and (2) using all above variables, may be different - hopefully only a little - from the guestimates of VAach that you may have used in a table prepared without using maths.
The OVAX table also shows the total of all VAach for each Action column, adding up the VAach for each Value achieved by the Action in the column. This is a total measure (Total VAach) of the success of your chosen Action with respect to all your Values that are connected to that Action. This allows a numerical comparison of alternative future Actions, or a numerical evaluation of past Actions. If some of the variables are not relevant for the comparisons that you intend to make, they can be set to 0 or to 100%. For example, if you need to compare joining a golf club versus taking a teaching job, before deciding how much effort to put into each of these Actions, you can set VAeffo=100% (i.e. assuming you do maximum in each case).
A NUMERICAL EXAMPLE
The OVAX Table for Retirement shown in a previous Blog, contains a Value-Action combination: V3 (to exercise) -A2 (teaching). We can use variables and measures as follows:
V3A2suit=60% because the road to the school has a stretch suitable for running, and the school allows teachers to use the school gym,
V3A2tal=50% which is my personal ability (medium, as I am not very energetic!) to run on my way to the school, or to use the school gym.
Therefore:
V3A2pot = 0.6*0.5 =0.30 (30%)
I have shown, in the OVAX table, that my assumptions for V3 are: Vimp=70, Vgap=50. I assume that I make my best effort for this exercise (VAeffo=100%) and that I will always try (Aprob=100%). As a result:
VAach = 0.7*0.5*0.3 = 0.1 (10%)
If you are interested in this methodology, read the blogs in order, starting from the first one.