The word ‘Delphi‘ has come from Greek. In Athens of Greece during ancient times, it was a convention to consult an oracle representative of God Apollo who was believed to have contact with God. During that it was only the priest who could only interpret the advice given in the oracle.
In modem times, this method is essentially a group process to achieve a consensus forecast. This method calls for the selection of a panel of experts, either from within or outside the organization, whose comments are crystallized from a series of questionnaire response and then used as the basis of forecast.
A series of questionnaire are prepared from the responses received from a prior set of questions in a sequencing manner. At every stage, information obtained from the previous questionnaire is shared among the participating members, without, however, disclosing majority opinion. This secrecy is maintained since the majority opinion may have peer group influence on the minority opinion.
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The procedure of Delphi Technique may be enumerated as follows:
(i) To start with, it requires the selection of a coordinator and a panel of experts both within and outside the organization.
(ii) The coordinator then circulates questions in writing to each such expert.
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(iii) The experts then write their observations.
(iv) The coordinator then edits those observations and summarize, without, however disclosing the majority opinion in his summary.
(v) On the basis of his summary, the coordinator then develops a new set of questionnaire and circulates those among experts.
(vi) Experts then again answer such new set of questions.
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(vii) The coordinator repeats the process till such time he is able to synthesize the opinions of the experts.
The success of the process again depends on the following factors:
(i) Experts should be so chosen that they have the requisite knowledge and skills to give the best answers.
(ii) Questions should be relevant to the objectives.
(iii) Criteria for evaluating responses should be consistent, unbiased and befitting with the objectives. Although, there is no universal set of criteria for evaluating responses, it is often considered necessary to follow the under mentioned guidelines:
(a) Consider the assessment made by the experts in terms of their knowledge in the area.
(b) Consider the assessment in terms of feasibility, objectives, time and resource requirement.
(c) Consider the assessment in terms of desirability.
(d) Consider the assessment in terms of extraneous factors.