About Delphi method Formation of a team to undertake and monitor a Delphi on a given subject.

Question 55

About Delphi method

a.       Formation of a team to undertake and monitor a Delphi on a given subject.

b.      Selection of one or more panels to participate in the exercise. Customarily, the panelists are experts in the area to be investigated.

c.       Development of the first round Delphi questionnaire

d.      All are true

Answer

d. All are true

Reference

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphi_method

http://www.iit.edu/~it/delphi.html

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Discussion

The Delphi method is a systematic interactive forecasting method for obtaining forecasts from a panel of independent experts. The carefully selected experts answer questionnaires in two or more rounds. After each round, a facilitator provides an anonymous summary of the experts’ forecasts from the previous round as well as the reasons they provided for their judgments. Thus, participants 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. Finally, the process is stopped after a pre-defined stop criterion (e.g. number of rounds, achievement of consensus, stability of results) and the mean or median scores of the final rounds determine the results.

Delphi  is based on well-researched principles and provides forecasts that are more accurate than those from unstructured groups. The technique can be adapted for use in face-to-face meetings, and is then called mini-Delphi or Estimate-Talk-Estimate (ETE). Delphi has been widely used for business forecasting and has certain advantages over another structured forecasting approach: prediction markets.

Explanation

Fowles (1978) describes the following ten steps for the Delphi method:

1. Formation of a team to undertake and monitor a Delphi on a given subject.
2. Selection of one or more panels to participate in the exercise. Customarily, the panelists are experts in the area to be investigated.
3. Development of the first round Delphi questionnaire
4. Testing the questionnaire for proper wording (e.g., ambiguities, vagueness)
5. Transmission of the first questionnaires to the panelists
6. Analysis of the first round responses
7. Preparation of the second round questionnaires (and possible testing)
8. Transmission of the second round questionnaires to the panelists
9. Analysis of the second round responses (Steps 7 to 9 are reiterated as long as desired or necessary to achieve stability in the results.)
10. Preparation of a report by the analysis team to present the conclusions of the exercise

Comments

The most important issue in this process is the understanding of the aim of the Delphi exercise by all participants. Otherwise the panelists may answer inappropriately or become frustrated and lose interest. The respondents to the questionnaire should be well informed in the appropriate area but the literature suggest that a high degree of expertise is not necessary. The minimum number of participants to ensure a good group performance is somewhat dependent on the study design. Experiments by Brockhoff  suggest that under ideal circumstances, groups as small as four can perform well.

Tips

Free software for conducting Delphi studies is available at http://armstrong.wharton.upenn.edu/delphi2/