OPM300 Delphi Method Project

This document outlines the requirements for a Session Long Project (SLP) using the Delphi method in OPM300. The project involves selecting a future outcome, gathering opinions from three participants, and iteratively refining those opinions to reach a consensus. The document provides detailed instructions, including how to format the write-up, and emphasizes the importance of avoiding plagiarism. It also includes background information on the Delphi method, its purpose, and its application in decision-making. The document also includes a flowcharting exercise and a glossary.

instructions
Topic:
For the sake of simplicity, choose a future outcome that can
be expressed as a single-number probability, or likelihood.
Examples include
 The likelihood that X will be elected (to some office) in 20##.
 The likelihood that Y will win the Super Bowl / World Series / NBA
Championship in 20##.
 The percentage of feature films that will consist entirely of computer-
generated imagery by the year 20##.
The topic should be something that both you and your
exercise participants care about, and also know something
about (although you need not be experts).
Participants:
You will be the coordinator. Select three other persons as
participants. Their cooperation will be important, so be sure
to choose people you can count on. These can be either
family members, close friends, or other students (although
not students enrolled in this course. They’ll be busy
coordinating their own Delphi exercises.)
SLP Assignment Expectations
As closely as possible, the SLP should follow the detailed
example, which is cited in the Home Page discussion. You
may copy and / or adapt verbiage from the example without
citing it. (This special dispensation is intended to help move
things along.)
The SLP writeup should include
 The Letters to the Participants, explaining the project and requesting their
assistance.
 The first-round responses from the participants, edited to remove
identifying information (such as email addresses).

 Follow the instructions in the BSBA Writing Style Guide (July 2014
edition), available online at
https://mytlc.trident.edu/files/Writing-Guide_Trident_2014.pdf.
 There are no guidelines concerning length. Write what you need to write
– neither more, nor less.
 In the SLP ONLY, references and citations are NOT required. However:
If you state a fact, express an opinion, or use a turn of phrase that isn’t
your own, then you should credit the source, just like you would in
everyday conversation. (Example: “As Rodney Dangerfield always used
to say, ‘I get no respect!’ “)
-----
Answer for TEST YOUR UNDERSTANDING (Home page)
GLOSSARY
Start: Patient
arrives at the
front desk.
A. Has patient
been
admitted?
B. Patient
checked into
ward.
C. Is patient
in labor?
D. Patient
sent to
admission
office.
E. Patient is
admitted.
THIS IS THE HOME PAGE READING THAT WAS SPOKEN ABOUT
The SLP has no reference-and-citation requirements at all.
The Discussions do, but there are no requirements
concerning the number and type of sources that need to be
cited.
About the Assignments:

Just because the assignments don’t require a lot of writing,
don’t think they’re easy. You should at least read the Home
Page of each module, on the first day of that module. Do
not, repeat NOT, attempt the assignments without first
studying all the prescribed materials, and working through
the examples. Attempting to cut corners will only result in
frustration.
A Word to the Wise:
In the middle of the Web, as in the middle of the Garden of
Eden, there is a Tree of Forbidden Fruit. That fruit consists
of worked-out assignments. Thou shalt not eat of it!
Every Case is revised at the beginning of every Session. If
you surf the Web, you’ll find cases that look the same, but
they’re not. The differences may be difficult for you to spot,
but they’re obvious to your professor, and if you’re caught
using the Web version, you’ll receive a flat and final zero (F).
The consequences of getting a zero on a Case are dire.
Even if you received a clean A (full credit) on every other
assignment and discussion, the loss of 50 points would bring
you down to the edge of the B range. And getting a clean A
on everything else would be a remarkable achievement. If
you could do that, you certainly wouldn’t need to cheat.
So the Word to the Wise, with regards to cheating, is this:
Don’t.
And so to work ---
Topic 1: Flowcharting
For many people, understanding a process begins with a
sketch. If they can’t depict a situation using boxes, arrows,
stick figures, abbreviations and whatever, then they don’t
feel they really know what’s going on.
Flowcharting is nothing more than a disciplined way of
sketching. It helps people organize their thoughts, and also
communicate those thoughts to others. Even a rough

sketch can be useful. Many flowcharts been scrawled on
whiteboards, tabletops, cocktail napkins, and the backs of
envelopes.
Flowcharts can help us get our heads around new
processes. They can also help us describe existing
processes, either for training purposes, or the goal of
improving them. Flowcharts are used in many different
disciplines, each having its own set of symbols and
conventions; if you’re a software engineer, for example,
you’re familiar with flowchart symbols standing for I/O
devices, processing spaces, and online storage. If you’re
working in telecommunications or simulations technology,
you’ve doubtless seen at least one SDL diagram, which is a
specialized type of flowchart.
In this Module, we’ll use a bare-bones set of flowchart
symbols: activities, decisions, connectors, and endpoints,
connected by arrows. This is analogous to a made-up
language consisting of nothing but nouns, verbs, modifiers,
periods, and a rudimentary positional grammar. Not enough
for the “real world,” but adequate for training purposes.
Please see Rensvold (2014a), a PPT deck which describes
the elements of flowcharting, and presents a worked-out
example. For additional background, you can read an
excellent overview published by Air University (AU, 2013),
and Murphy’s (2005) short summary. For even more
information, use Google to search “Flowchart” and
“Flowcharting.” There are thousands of related sites on the
Web.
Have you done the reading? If not, then stop – you should
at least take a look at the PPT deck. If you’ve done the
reading, then here are some additional tips. Read and study
them before attempting the Case.
0. Flowcharting requires a lot of empirical trial and error
(aka fiddling around). Start with a big piece of paper, a soft
lead pencil, and a block eraser. The eraser is important –
you’ll need it. Other people find it convenient to use a
whiteboard or a chalk board. One creative soul wrote out all

the activities and decisions on 3X5 cards, laid them out on
the floor, then put down soda straws to connect them. Once
she had a layout she liked, she took a picture of it.
1. Do not mix activities and decisions. Separate them.
Here’s an example, representing actions taken when a
woman who’s about to have a baby appears at the front
desk of a hospital. If she’s already been admitted
(preadmitted), she’s given a bed in the OB/GYN ward;
otherwise, she’s sent to the admissions office, and
admitted. Following admission, she’s sent to the ward.
The
flowchart
on the
right is
NOT
correct. A
decision is
implied in
the first
rectangula
r box,
which
should
contain an
activity,
and only
one
activity.
The flowchart on the
right IS correct. The
activities and the
decisions are clearly
separated.

2. Use a consistent flow direction. Usually, a process is
flowcharted from left to right, or from up to down, although
there may be some loops (as shown in Rensvold, 2014a)
where the flow temporarily reverses. Since you have to
indicate direction, always be sure to include arrowheads on
the connecting lines. This seems obvious, but it’s
sometimes overlooked.
3. Avoid clutter. Rather than trying to fit a large flowchart
onto one page, use connectors to spread it across two or
more pages. Rensvold (2014a) shows you how to do that.
4. Use only the prescribed symbols. If using MS Word,
create a drawing canvas, then use standard shapes
(rectangles, lozenges, arrows). On the Word ribbon, click on
Insert. In the Illustrations group, click on Shapes. For more
information about inserting shapes, see MS Word Help.
5. Don’t overload the flowchart with text. If the activities or
descriptions don’t lend themselves to short descriptions,
simply label the activities and decision A, B, C… and so
forth, and provide a glossary. Here’s how the example
above would appear if you wanted to describe the various
steps in more detail, but couldn’t fit all the information into
the body of the flowchart.
GLOSSARY
Start: Pregnant
woman arrives at the
receiving desk of the
hospital.
A. Is she already
admitted?
B. Assigned a bed in
the OB/GYN ward.
C. Sent to
admissions office
D. Admitted.
This technique is particularly useful if you’re drawing the
flowchart by hand, and don’t want to do a lot of lettering.
Below, we’ve drawn the same flowchart on white paper with

a Sharpie, taken a digital picture of it, and pasted the image
(in .pdf format) into the document[1]
GLOSSARY
Start: Pregnant woman arrives
at the receiving desk of the
hospital.
A. Is she already admitted?
B. Assigned a bed in the
OB/GYN ward.
C. Sent to admissions office
D. Admitted.
6. Identify different decisions, and put them into different
boxes. For an example, let’s make the process above a bit
more complicated.
A woman about to deliver presents at the hospital front
desk. If she’s been admitted already, she goes straight to
the ward; otherwise, she is sent to the admissions office,
admitted, then sent to the ward. However: if she’s in labor,
she goes straight to the ward. If she’s not admitted already,
then the staff admits her at bedside.
Here’s one solution.

Notice that the same activity appears twice; which is, the
check for whether the patient has been admitted. If she’s
not in labor, and was admitted before checking into the
ward, then the second check of her admission status (after
checking into the ward) is purely notional. It doesn’t pertain
to her, but it does pertain to others, and that’s why it appears
again at this point in the flowchart.
We can convince ourselves that the flowchart is correct by
listing all the possible ways a patient can present, then
verifying that there’s a path corresponding to each of them.
Patient presentations:
1. In labor, admitted.
2. In labor, not admitted.
3. Not in labor, admitted.
4. Not in labor, not admitted.
Paths:
1. Patient presents. Patient is in labor. Patient is checked into the ward.
Admission status is verified. Process continues to the right.
2. Patient presents. Patient is in labor. Patient is checked into ward.
Admission status is checked, and the patient has not been admitted.
Patient is admitted while in the ward. (The arrow goes back to the ward,
but the patient is already there. Admission status is nominally checked
again, but this time she’s been admitted.) Process continues to the right.

3. Patient presents. Patient is not in labor. Patient is already admitted.
Patient is checked into the ward. Admission status is verified. Process
continues to the right.
4. Patient presents. Patient is not is labor. Patient has not been admitted.
Patient is sent to admissions office. Patient is admitted. Patient is
checked into the ward. Admission status is verified. Process continues to
the right.
TEST YOUR UNDERSTANDING:
Redraw the flowchart above, with the following change. The
first check, after the patient presents, is not whether she’s in
labor, but whether she’s been admitted. Present the new
flowchart with a glossary: that is, label the various activities
and decision A, B, C, etc. and provide a list explaining each
label.
The answer appears at the bottom of the SLP page. Don’t
peek! Try it first.
Topic 2: The Delphi Method
Where do Estimates Come From?
Throughout the remainder of the course, we’ll be using
various estimates. Here are some examples.
In Module 2 (Decision Trees), one of the examples states, “If
the IT system were upgraded, then there’s a 40% chance
(i.e., a 0.40 probability) that (some entity) would buy (the
company)…” If the 0.40 figure happens to be wrong, then
any decision based on it will also be wrong. So the obvious
question is, where did that figure come from, and what gives
us a warm feeling that it’s right?
In Module 3 (PERT-CPM), each Case problem begins with a
list of project tasks, along with three estimated completion
times for each; the optimistic (shortest) time, the pessimistic
(longest) time, and the most likely (somewhere-in-between)
time. These times are the necessary starting point for the
problem; but where did they come from? In this instance, of
course, the person who devised the problem simply made

them up. But if you were using PERT-CPM to run a real-
world project, such as building a factory, you’d need time
estimates that had some basis in reality. Where would you
get them?
In Module 4 (Linear Programming), one of the examples
begins with the statement, “An electronics firm produces a
calculator. Customer demand is for 100 … calculators per
day.” Oh, really? Is that the average demand over the past
year, the demand yesterday, the seasonally-weighted daily
demand, or something else entirely? Whatever it may be,
it’s only useful to the extent that it accurately
reflects future customer demand. After all, production
decisions must be made on the basis of what a
company expects to sell, not what it’s sold in the past. So
that 100-per-day number needs to be seen as a forecast.
Who made that forecast, and how reliable is it?
About Methods
There’s an entire discipline, called Decision Science, that’s
dedicated to answering questions like that. Speaking
broadly, it employs two methods; the quantitative method,
and the qualitative method. Those are the ends of a
spectrum; there are a lot of mixed methods in between.
The quantitative method is based upon numbers. It begins
with what’s happened in the past, as reflected in historical
data, and goes on to predict what’s going to happen in the
future. Still speaking broadly, the quantitative method uses
two types of models: time-series models, and associative
models. Time-series models are discussed in terms of
things like weighted moving averages, exponential
smoothing and trend projection, while associative models
are discussed in terms of clustering, multivariate correlation
and statistical significance. The quantitative method is used
in courses such as Econometrics, Actuarial Science and
Business Research Methods, and we will not discuss it
further here.
Qualitative methods, as opposed to quantitative methods,
are not based on numbers and computations, but rather on

expert opinion, personal experience, intuition and informed
guesswork. Again, there are several methods – but we’ll
limit our attention to only one, the so-called Delphi Method.
The Delphi Method – Why?
The Delphi Method begins with the opinions of a group of
experts. It follows a procedure that attempts to arrive at an
expert consensus, or at least a position that reflects the full
range of expert opinion, while avoiding some of the hazards
of group decision making. One of those hazards is
groupthink.
Groupthink (Janis, 1982) occurs when a group arrives at a
more extreme judgment, or decision, than any single
member of the group would have arrived at if acting alone.
Janis (1982) developed the theory following his analyses of
the Vietnam War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Bay of
Pigs fiasco, during which some men[2], supposedly among
the smartest in America, did some astonishingly stupid
things.
An extreme example of groupthink is the Abilene Paradox
(Harvey, 1988). When a group is caught up in a so-called
“trip to Abilene,” it does something collectively that not one
single one of them would have done individually. The
classic Abilene punch line, voiced by every member of the
group in the aftermath of the debacle, is “But I
thought you all wanted to do it. I thought I was going along
with everyone else!” One example cited by Harvey (1988)
was the Watergate scandal of the Nixon administration, in
which every member of the President’s team wound up
supporting an illegal course of action that none of them
thought was a good idea.
The exact mechanism underlying groupthink is still the
subject of research, but it is generally understood to be
related to the social experiences of group membership. The
group may be maintaining a positive collective identity,
avoiding a threat to its existence, or relying, inappropriately,
on its past history of success (Esser, 1998).

The goal of the Delphi Method is to obtain the benefits of
group decision-making, while avoiding the biases arising
from group membership, such as groupthink.
The Delphi Method – How?
The key elements of the Delphi are anonymity, repetition,
and controlled feedback. Here’s how it works.
A person charged with making a decision, the Delphi
coordinator, contacts a panel of experts. Each expert is told
that his or her identity will not be shared with the others.
The coordinator shares the facts and issues bearing on the
decision each expert, obtains an recommendation,
summarizes it, and forwards it to the others. In the second
round, the coordinator invites each expert to submit a
revised recommendation, amended (or not) after considering
the recommendations of the others. The coordinator then
summarizes and shares the revised recommendations. The
procedure continues, either through a fixed number of
iterations, or until a consensus is achieved, or until the
coordinator is convinced that all sides of the question have
been expressed and adequately explored.
The technique was devised by the RAND Corporation in the
early 1950’s, in support of a secret Air Force project
assessing American vulnerability to a nuclear attack. The
question was; from an enemy’s point of view, which
factories would be the most lucrative targets? A primitive
computer program, assessing the value of factories in terms
of their floor space, was producing nonsense. It was
obvious that a small factory producing one key product, such
as a specialty alloy used in jet engines, would be a greater
loss to the nation that a sprawling plant that stamped out
automobile tires. The RAND researchers had the bright idea
of actually asking the experts who worked in various
industries, and compiling their opinions. Anonymity and
controlled feedback were, in the first instance, motivated by
the need for secrecy; obviously, it would not do for an
enemy to discover which industrial installations the US Air
Force considered the country’s most valuable!