Delphi Technique

Overview

The Delphi Technique was developed in the 1950’s by Norman Dalkey of the RAND Corporation and has been widely used in business, government and academic settings for a variety of research purposes. It is used to collect and distil the judgements of experts using a series of questionnaires interspersed with feedback. Each questionnaire is developed based on results of the previous one. 1

The typical Delphi study has four key features:

  1. Anonymity of Delphi participants: allows the participants to freely express their opinions without undue social pressures to conform from others in the group. Decisions are evaluated on their merit, rather than who has proposed the idea.
  2. Iteration: allows the participants to refine their views in light of the progress of the group’s work from round to round.
  3. Controlled feedback: informs the participants of the other participant’s perspectives, and provides the opportunity for Delphi participants to clarify or change their views.
  4. Statistical aggregation of group response: allows for a quantitative analysis and interpretation of data. 2

Steps to Our Research Process

We will use a three iteration Delphi study. In each Round the experts will individually answer a set of questions. The answers will be submitted to the research team where they will be consolidated and analysed. The research team will produce an interim report for comment by the Expert Group at the end of each Round. The data in the Interim Report will suggest new questions which will form the basis of the subsequent Round. Members of the Expert Group will build their knowledge from the shared ideas at the end of each round and in the Final Report.

In Round One we will ask our Expert Group qualitative questions on a number of areas pertaining to the Prevention of Catastrophe. These questions have been developed through literature and case review and have been vetted by a small number of local experts. We will analyse the responses to the questions from our experts, produce an interim report summarizing these and identify new questions emerging from the data. These new questions will form the basis for Round Two.

In Round Two we will share our interim report for comment and ask the new set of questions that have arisen from the responses to Round One. It is anticipated that the Round Two questions will more tightly bounded than those in Round One, possibly asking for discreet yes / no choices; for priority on a list of potential actions; or for quantitative data. We will include some qualitative questions as well. Once again in Round Two we will analyse the responses, produce an interim report and identify questions from our data for the next Delphi questionnaire.

In Round Three we will share our interim report from Round Two for comment and ask our final set of questions. The Round Three questions will be primarily limited choice or quantitative questions. The data from these questions will be analyzed and a Round Three report drafted and circulated for final comment.

Delphi Study Steps: Best Practices in Preventing Catastrophe

delphi-process

Our Final Report will contain data from each of the three rounds and a comprehensive view of the best practices for preventing catastrophe. We will highlight areas where there is a high level of agreement and significant disagreement in understanding the issues in preventing catastrophe, actions that are most effective in prevention, and signals that indicate action must be taken with urgency.

1 For a more detailed description see Skulmoski, G., Hartman, F. & Krahn, J. (2007) The Delphi Method for Graduate Research. Journal of Information Technology Education Volume 6 pp 1-21.

2 Rowe, G. & Wright, G. (1999). The Delphi technique as a forecasting tool: Issues and analysis. International Journal of Forecasting, 15(4), 353 – 375.