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The Delphi method has been an anticipatory thinking (futures) technique aimed at building an agreement, or consensus about an opinion or view, without necessarily having people meet face to face, such as through surveys, questionnaires, e-mails etc. This group dynamics technique, if used effectively, can be highly efficient and generate new knowledge. The Delphi method, or Delphi Technique, is analogous to multiple rounds of secret-ballot voting on issues, but is more thorough than simply repeated run-off elections. Anticipatory thinking (Thought Leadership) skills and abilities are cultivated by interdisciplinary peer mentoring protocols. ...
Consensus has two common meanings. ...
The term group dynamics implies that individual behaviours may differ depending on individuals current or prospective connections to a sociological group. ...
The Polling by William Hogarth (1755); Before the secret ballot was introduced voter intimidation was commonplace Wikisource has original text related to this article: A History of the Australian Ballot System in the United States The secret ballot is a voting method in which a voters choices are confidential. ...
Runoff voting is a voting system used in single-seat elections. ...
To build interdisciplinary consensus, the Delphi method often uses the Hegelian dialectic process of thesis (establishing an opinion or view), antithesis (conflicting opinion or view) and finally synthesis (a new agreement or consensus), with synthesis becoming the new thesis. All participants in this organizational learning process shall then either change their views to align with the new thesis, or support the new thesis, to establish a new common view. The involution goal is a continual evolution towards 'oneness of mind' or consensus on the opinion or view. Interdisciplinary work is that which integrates concepts across different disciplines. ...
Broadly speaking, a dialectic (Greek: διαλεκτική) is an exchange of propositions (theses) and counter-propositions (antitheses) resulting in a disagreement. ...
Look up thesis in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...
Antithesis (Greek for setting opposite, from against + position) means a direct contrast or exact opposition to something. ...
Synthesis (from the ancient Greek σÏν (with) and θεσις (placing), is commonly understood to be an integration of two or more pre-existing elements which results in a new creation. ...
Organizational learning is an area of knowledge within organizational theory that studies models and theories about the way an organization learns and adapts. ...
In mathematics, an involution is a function that is its own inverse, so that f(f(x)) = x for all x in the domain of f. ...
History of the Delphi method
The Delphi method was developed, over a period of years, at the Rand Corporation at the beginning of the cold war to forecast the impact of technology on warfare. [1] A number of events influenced the development. Alternate meanings: See RAND (disambiguation) The RAND Corporation is an American think tank first formed to offer research and analysis to the U.S. military. ...
For other uses, please see Cold War (disambiguation). ...
For other uses of War, see War (disambiguation). ...
In 1944, General Arnold ordered the creation of the report for the U.S. Air Force on the future technological capabilities that might be used by the military. Two years later, Douglas Aircraft company started Project RAND to study "the broad subject of inter-continental warfare other than surface". 1944 (MCMXLIV) was a leap year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1944 calendar). ...
Henry Hap Arnold Henry Harley Hap Arnold was an aviation pioneer and commander of the United States Army Air Corps (from 1938), commander of the U.S. Army Air Forces (from 1941 until 1945) and the first General of the Air Force (in 1949. ...
Seal of the Air Force. ...
The Douglas Aircraft Company was founded by Donald Wills Douglas in July 1921. ...
RAND Headquarters The RAND Corporation is a global policy think tank first formed to offer research and analysis to the United States armed forces. ...
Different approaches were tried, but the shortcomings of traditional forecasting methods, such as theoretical approach, quantitative models or trend extrapolation, in areas where precise scientific laws have not been established yet, quickly became apparent. To combat these shortcomings, the Delphi method was developed in RAND Corporation during the 1950-1960s (1959) by Olaf Helmer, Norman Dalkey, and Nicholas Rescher.[1] Technology forecasting is predicting the future characteristics of useful technological machines, procedures or techniques. ...
Theory has a number of distinct meanings in different fields of knowledge, depending on the context and their methodologies. ...
The Delphi method was used by Rand Experts when they were asked to give their opinion on the probability, frequency and intensity of possible enemy attacks. Other experts could anonymously give feedback. This process was repeated several times till a consensus emerged.
Role of the facilitator The person co-ordinating the Delphi method can be known as a facilitator, and facilitates the responses of their panel of experts, who are selected for a reason, usually that they hold knowledge on an opinion or view. The facilitator sends out questionnaires, surveys etc. and if the panel of experts accept, they follow instructions and present their views. Responses are collected and analysed, then common and conflicting viewpoints are identified. If consensus is not reached, the process continues through thesis and antithesis, to gradually work towards synthesis, and building consensus.
The Delphi method and forecasting The Delphi method is a systematic interactive forecasting method based on independent inputs of selected experts. Look up forecast in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...
The name "Delphi" derives from the Oracle of Delphi. The authors of the method were not happy with this name, because it implies "something oracular, something smacking a little of the occult", whereas in reality precisely the opposite is involved. The Delphi method recognizes the value of expert opinion, experience and intuition and allows using the limited information available in these forms, when full scientific knowledge is lacking. The word Sibyl comes (via Latin) from the ancient Greek word sibylla, meaning prophetess. ...
Delphi method uses a panel of carefully selected experts who answer a series of questionnaires. Questions are usually formulated as hypotheses, and experts state the time when they think these hypotheses will be fulfilled. Each round of questioning is followed with the feedback on the preceding round of replies, usually presented anonymously. Thus the experts are encouraged to revise their earlier answers in light of the replies of other members of the group. It is believed that during this process the range of the answers will decrease and the group will converge towards the "correct" answer. After several rounds the process is complete and the median scores determine the final answers. From that the road-map or timetables of future developments can be derived. In probability theory and statistics, a median is a number dividing the higher half of a sample, a population, or a probability distribution from the lower half. ...
The following key characteristics of the Delphi method help the participants to focus on the issues at hand and separate Delphi from other methodologies:
- Structuring of information flow
- Regular feedback
- Anonymity of the participants
Structuring of information flow The initial contributions from the experts are collected in the form of answers to questionnaires and their comments to these answers. The panel director controls the interactions among the participants by processing the information and filtering out irrelevant content. This avoids the negative effects of face-to-face panel discussions and solves the usual problems of group dynamics.
Regular feedback Participants comment on their own forecasts, the responses of others and on the progress of the panel as a whole. At any moment they can revise their earlier statements. While in regular group meetings participants tend to stick to previously stated opinions and often conform too much to group leader, the Delphi method prevents it.
Anonymity of the participants Usually all participants maintain anonymity. Their identity is not revealed even after the completion of the final report. This stops them from dominating others in the process using their authority or personality, frees them to some extent from their personal biases, minimizes the "bandwagon effect" or "halo effect", allows them to freely express their opinions, encourages open critique and admitting errors by revising earlier judgments. The bandwagon effect is the observation that people often do (or believe) things because many other people do (or believe) the same. ...
Halo effect refers to the cognitive bias in which the assessment of an individual quality serves to influence and bias the judgement of other qualities. ...
Applications First applications of the Delphi method were in the field of science and technology forecasting. The objective of the method was to combine expert opinions on likelihood and expected development time, of the particular technology, in a single indicator. One of the first such reports, prepared in 1964 by Gordon and Helmer, assessed the direction of long-term trends in science and technology development, covering such topics as scientific breakthroughs, population control, automation, space progress, war prevention and weapon systems. Technology forecasting is predicting the future characteristics of useful technological machines, procedures or techniques. ...
Population control is the practice of limiting population increase, usually by reducing the birth rate. ...
Automation (ancient Greek: = self dictated) or industrial automation or numerical control is the use of control systems (e. ...
Later the Delphi method was applied in other areas, especially those related to public policy issues, such as economic trends, health and education. It was also applied successfully and with high accuracy in business forecasting. For example, in one case reported by Basu and Schroeder (1977), the Delphi method predicted the sales of a new product during the first two years with inaccuracy of 3–4% compared with actual sales. Quantitative methods produced errors of 10–15%, and traditional unstructured forecast methods had errors of about 20%.
Acceptance Overall the track record of the Delphi method is mixed. There have been many cases when the method produced poor results. Still, some authors attribute this to poor application of the method and not to the weaknesses of the method itself. It must also be realised that in areas such as science and technology forecasting the degree of uncertainty is so great that exact and always correct predictions are impossible, so a high degree of error is to be expected.
Another particular weakness of the Delphi method is that future developments are not always predicted correctly by iterative consensus of experts, but instead by unconventional thinking of amateur outsiders.
One of the initial problems of the method was its inability to make complex forecasts with multiple factors. Potential future outcomes were usually considered as if they had no effect on each other. Later on, several extensions to the Delphi method were developed to address this problem, such as cross impact analysis, that takes into consideration the possibility that the occurrence of one event may change probabilities of other events covered in the survey. Still the Delphi method can be used most successfully in forecasting single scalar indicators.
Despite these shortcomings, today the Delphi method is a widely accepted forecasting tool and has been used successfully for thousands of studies in areas varying from technology forecasting to drug abuse. Technology forecasting is predicting the future characteristics of useful technological machines, procedures or techniques. ...
Drug abuse has a wide range of definitions, all of them relating to the use, misuse or overuse of a psychoactive drug or performance enhancing drug for a non-therapeutic or non-medical effect. ...
Delphi applications not aiming at consensus Traditionally the Delphi method has aimed at a consensus of the most probable future by iteration. The Policy Delphi launched by Murray Turoff instead is a decision support method aiming at structuring and discussing the diverse views of the preferred future. The Argument Delphi developed by Osmo Kuusi focuses on ongoing discussion and finding relevant arguments rather than focusing on the output. The Disaggregative Policy Delphi developed by Petri Tapio uses cluster analysis as a systematic tool to construct various scenarios of the future in the latest Delphi round. The respondent's view on the probable and the preferable future are dealt with as separate cases.
Directing the flow to a predetermined goal The Delphi Technique can also be abused to give an appearance of community input when in reality the facilitator is directing the flow to a predetermined goal.
See also The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations, first published in 2004, is a book written by James Surowiecki about the aggregation of information in groups, resulting in decisions that, he argues, are often better than...
The Wideband Delphi estimation method is a consensus-based estimation technique for estimating effort. ...
John Brunner John Kilian Houston Brunner (September 24, 1934 – August 26, 1995) was a prolific British author of science fiction novels and stories. ...
The Shockwave Rider is a science fiction novel by John Brunner, originally published in 1975, notable for its heros use of computer cracking skills to escape pursuit in a dystopian future, and for the coining of the word worm to describe a program that propagates itself through a computer...
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is an agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of new technology for use by the military. ...
The Policy Analysis Market (PAM) was a proposed futures exchange developed by the United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and based on an idea first proposed by Net Exchange[1], a San Diego research firm specializing in the development of online markets. ...
Prediction markets are speculative (i. ...
Look up forecast in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...
Notes - ^ a b "JVTE v15n2: The Modified Delphi Technique - A Rotational Modification," Journal of Vocational and Technical Education, Volume 15 Number 2, Spring 1999, web: VT-edu-JVTE-v15n2: of Delphi Technique developed by Olaf Helmer and Norman Dalkey.
External links - The Delphi Method: Techniques and Applications, edited by Harold A. Linstone and Murray Turoff — a comprehensive book on Delphi method (free download, 11Mb PDF, 618 pages)
- Dialectic And Praxis: Diaprax And The End Of The Ages, by Dean Gotcher
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