Delphi Process

A Methodology Used for the Elicitation of Opinions of Experts

by Bernice B. Brown

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A description of the Delphi method and some of the areas to which it has and could be applied. Choosing the panel of experts, whose expertise could be decided on various grounds, is one problem of the method; another is the questioning technique itself. Questionnaires have been used in the past; however, this method could become cumbersome. In a few years it should be possible to equip each expert with a console for feeding responses to a computer, which would then compute the group response and feed back the results. Six experiments using the Delphi method have indicated that it may prove useful in military, educational, and business planning, as a tool for forecasting future strategic, economic, or other states. Other possible applications include medical diagnostics and investment counseling.

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