Basic steps and characteristics of Delphi method

Delphi method is a more complicated and time-consuming method, which is similar to the nominal group method except that no team members are required to attend. Delphi method was put forward by Helm and D'Arc in the 1940s, and further developed by Golden and Rand Company. The name Delphi comes from the myth of Apollo, the ancient Greek sun god. It is said that Apollo has the ability to foresee the future. Therefore, this method is named Delphi method. Delphi method is an effective group decision-making method put forward by the experts of American RAND Corporation in the early 1960s to avoid the defect of obeying authority or blindly obeying the majority in collective discussion.

In order to eliminate the interaction between members, participating experts can get to know each other. It uses anonymous way to consult opinions repeatedly and communicate back to back, so as to give full play to the wisdom, knowledge and experience of experts and finally summarize a prediction result that can reflect the will of the group.

The general procedure of Delphi method is as follows:

(1) Determine the purpose of the survey and draw up the survey outline. First of all, we should determine the target, draw up a detailed outline for experts to answer questions, and at the same time provide relevant background materials to experts, including the purpose of forecasting, time limit, the method of filling in the questionnaire and other desired requirements.

(2) Select a group of experts who are familiar with this issue, generally at least 20 people, including experts in theory and practice.

(3) Send a questionnaire to the selected experts through communication to solicit opinions.

(4) Summarize and synthesize the feedback opinions, send them to relevant experts after quantitative statistical analysis, and each member receives a questionnaire result.

(5) After seeing the results, please put forward the plan again. The result of the first round is often to stimulate new plans or change some people's original views.

(6) Repeat steps 4 and 5 until an agreement is reached.

The advantage of this method is simple, scientific and practical, and it can avoid the disadvantages of being afraid of the echo of authority, sticking to one's own opinions, or being unwilling to conflict with others' opinions because of taking care of one's own feelings. At the same time, it can make everyone's opinions converge quickly, and participants can easily accept the conclusion, which has a certain degree of objectivity of comprehensive opinions.

But the disadvantage is that experts usually don't have enough time and their answers are always sloppy. At the same time, because decision-making mainly depends on experts, it is still the collective subjective judgment of experts. In addition, it is difficult to choose the right experts, and it takes a long time to consult, so it is difficult to make quick decisions. Nevertheless, because this method is simple and reliable, it is still an effective group decision-making method commonly used by people.