TECHNIQUE OF DELPHI

A Delphi technique is carried out by interrogating a group of experts with a series of questionnaires. The different steps involved in a Delphi are explained below.

Step 1. Identify the area of field in which a Delphi exercise has to be carried out.

Step 2. Identify a set of generators of technology, equipment manufactures, development bankers, technology users, technology experts, researchers and social scientists who can help in preparing a set of questions for forecasting future technological developments in a given area.

Step 3. A small core group will prepare the questions covering a number of technological areas.

Step 4. The questions are administered to a number of participants from various agencies.

Step 5. The first round responses for the questionnaire are obtained. The responses are processed. The participants proposing minority views, extreme views, etc are also included.

Step 6. The second round questionnaire containing the responses of the first round questionnaire is mailed back to the participants to give their comments.

Step 7. The second round results are processed to get the consensus.

If the situation demands, there can be a third round, and in an exceptional situation, a fourth round. The first round questionnaire may be unstructured and open-ended, though this may place heavy burden o the respondents. If it is highly structured or restrictive, it can cause the respondent to overlook or omit some events or points, which might be important to those who conduct the Delphi, but must have missed out of ignorance.

Policy Delphi

Policy Delphi was first introduced in 1969 to seek a consensus among group of homogenous experts (Turoff, 1970). The Policy Delphi seeks to generate strongest possible opposing views on potential resolutions of a major policy of issue. The experts become an advocate for effectiveness or efficiency and must compete with advocates for concerned interest groups within the society or organization involved with the issue. Policy Delphi rests on the premise that decision maker is not interested in having a group to generate his decision but rather have a informed group present all the options and supporting evidence for his consideration. It is a tool for analysis of policy issues and not a mechanism for making a decision. Generating a consensus is not the prime objective, and the structure of the communication processes and the choice of the respondent group may be such as to make consensus on a particular resolution unlikely.
The main objectives of a Policy Delphi are to ensure that all possible options have been put on the table for consideration, to estimate and examine the possible consequences of any particular option and examine and estimate the acceptability of any particular option.

A Policy Delphi with six phases and are

(1) Formulation of the issue,
(2) Exposing the options,
(3) Determining initial positions on the issue,
(4) Exploring and obtaining reasons for disagreement,
(5) Evaluating the underlying reasons and
(6) Reevaluating the options.

Designing the Delphi questionnaire

The author has enquired the issues of the present Delphi Survey with a preliminary round of questions with a group of experts. On the basis of response, prepare a detailed questionnaire.

The values of each response in the seven-point scale of each question are sorted in the ascending order and note the median value (Q2) as the response of each question. To know the spread of opinion Q3-Q1 values for each response has been determined. Those with Q3-Q1 value of 1 is considered as the instances of perfect consensus, up to 2 fairly good consensus, 2 consensus and more than 2 with out consensus.