Experiment Planning Discussions (Brainstorming)

SUGGESTED TOPICS OF DISCUSSION:

  1. OBJECTIVES OF STUDY AND EVALUATION CRITERIA   

                    – What are the criteria of evaluation?  

                    – How are each of these criteria measured?  

                    – How are these criteria combined into a single number?

                    – What is the common characteristic of these criteria?

                    – What is the relative influence these criteria exhibit? 

  2. FACTORS

                    – What are the factors that influence the performance criteria?

                    – Which factors are more important than others?

  3. NOISE FACTORS 

                    – Which factors can’t be controlled in real life?

                    – Is the performance dependent on the application environment? 

  4. FACTOR LEVELS 

                    – What are the ranges of values the factors can assume within

           practical limits?

                    – How many levels of each factor should be used for the study?

         – What is the tradeoff for a higher level?

  5. INTERACTION BETWEEN FACTORS

                    – Which factors are most likely to interact? 

                    – How many interactions can be studied? 

  6. SCOPES OF STUDIES

                    – How many experiments can we run?

                    – When do we need the results?

                    – How much does each experiment cost?

  7. ADDITIONAL ITEMS

                    – What do we do with factors that are not included in the study?

                    – In what order do we run these experiments? 

                    – Who will do these experiments? 

                       etc.  

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