Author of this question: Damiano Varagnolo, Institutt for teknisk kybernetikk, NTNU, Norway & Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell’Informazione, Università degli Studi di Padova, Italy
Forecasting another busy Christmas season, Santa is getting ready to stock the workshop with enough toy parts to keep the elves building toys on time. But to avoid ordering too much of what they don’t need (and too little of what they do), Santa decides to consult last year’s Christmas wish lists as a decision basis. He gathers a team of data-savvy elves to help with inventory planning, but as you’ll see, each elf has their own very different opinion. Which advice should Santa follow to avoid a North Pole inventory disaster?
a. 📦❄️🚗 Elf Correlia has noticed that when last year’s letters were landing at Santa’s workshop, if the temperature outside was cold then the letters wishes were about toy cars. Since this year the forecasts predict a chilly weather, best to stock up on wheels and axles!
b. 🌞🏖️🪣 Elf Trendolin has another opinion: over the years the average temperature around the world is measured to be increasing. Increasing temperature means sunnier places, and since kids living in such places like to ask for pails and shovels, best thus to stock up such gears instead.
c. 🕒📬🧸 Elf Fitticus then comes in a haste, all sweaty after having read all the logs about at which time in the day which Christmas wish arrived. <<No, people, you got it wrong. Look here>> he says <<the logs clearly indicate that letters coming around 2:00 PM typically ask for teddy bears. You know true that this year the post services are going to deliver only in the early afternoon? So we should stock up on red teddy bear noses!>>
d. 🚀📈🔥 Elf Extrapola is though not agreeing with all of this. <<We shall look for toys with rising demand. And last year, when we just started getting letters, nobody was initially asking jetpacks, but as weeks were passing, the demand for jetpacks doubled every four days. This year may be the same – and I propose we double, even triple to be safe, the number of stocked rocket boosters!>>
e. 🤔🎅✨ Elf Instincta then suggests a very different approach: <<Are you sure you want to base your decisions based on data from that mess that was last year’s workplan and schedules? I trust you Santa to have a better feeling of what kids will like; information from last year may just confuse you>>. She thus proposes to ditch the approach of using just last year’s data, and go with just experience.