Conclusions

• This is a very high stress position. Time is short and they want the results a fast as possible.
• You will not get to see the competition, you are too busy doing data entry
• 3 people are a minimum at in the judges shack.
  • 1-someone to write down the distances as they are radioed in
  • 2-someone to read the scores aloud and collect the style cards from the judges
  • 3-someone to do the actual data entry
• My software was up to the task of data entry. It worked great for that.
• It was not up to the task of:
  • outputting the required reports
  • handling multiple events within a database
  • changing parameters for multiple events
• Changes I made to the software on the fly:
  • added an export button to each report, so that they could be formatted properly in Excel
  • changed the whole logic of how Individual Nordic Combined was scored, one half hour before the event started.

Lessons Learned

I'm not a big lessons guy. It is what it is. I took on a task without knowing how to do it and without clear guidance from anyone on what was required. I had a lot of on-the-job-training. But, I'm a fast learner, I go the job done and if I had to do it again. I'd do it with less stress and in far less time. I'd change my software around a bit. Make the parameters more easily changed and not hard calculate results as they are entered, but at the point where the results are needed.

If anyone offers you an Excel spreadsheet to use, try it out well in advance. Try typing numbers over formulas, try typing alphabetical characters in numeric fields. Every Excel spreadsheet I've seen for this looks great but the data entry is fragile, if you manage to over type a calculated field BAM, you've just broken the whole thing. In the heat of typing it is too easy to tab into a place you aren't supposed to be and continue typing. The first spreadsheet given to me was written for a 12 year old version of Excel written for Windows 95. I couldn't even guarantee that the embedded macros would function correctly. Of course, if you aren't brand new to ski jumping, this won't be as daunting a task for you as it was for me.

Also, some of the rules seem to be flexible and others are absolute. Our CofC and TD had different ideas of what data needed to be captured, Since the CofC was:

• top dog
• asking for less than the TD

I went with what he wanted. Your mileage may vary.

I hope this helps the next chief of calculations'.

If you want to try my software it is here.

It was written in Real Basic for windows. If anyone wants to pony up $100 I can buy the version that will allow me to output Mac and/or Linux versions.