The document outlines the implementation of the Delphi method to determine the feasibility of an e-commerce initiative for a custom bicycle company called Custombikes. It describes gathering expert opinions through questionnaires to identify and rank factors that would affect online sales revenues. The process involves brainstorming factors in initial questionnaires, validating and categorizing them in subsequent rounds, then narrowing factors down and having experts rank their importance. The results would be used to conduct a SWOT analysis to provide management with data to inform their decisions about pursuing the e-commerce opportunity.

1. Delphi Method
Presented to Dr. Mahmoud Abd Ellatif

2. Team Members
Amr Abd-Elmohsen Ali
Ahmed Mohammed Ezzat
Mohammed Saleh Abdo
Khaled Ahmed Mohammed

3. Agenda
• Introduction
• Delphi Method History
• Basic Delphi Method Process
• Properties of Delphi Method
• Delphi Method Advantages for Use in CI
• Delphi Method Disadvantages for Use in CI
• Delphi Method and F2F Meetings Comparison
• Implementation of the Delphi Method Example
• Conclusion

4. Introduction
Delphi Method
• The Delphi method is a structured communication technique, originally
developed as an interactive forecasting method which relies on a panel of
experts.
• Delphi Method is highly used in Collective Intelligence.
Collective Intelligence
• shared or group intelligence that emerges from the collaboration,
collective efforts, and competition of many individuals and appears in
consensus decision making.

5. Delphi Method History
• The name "Delphi" derives from the Oracle of Delphi
• The Delphi method was developed at the beginning of the Cold War to forecast
the impact of technology on warfare.
• In 1944, General Henry H. Arnold ordered the creation of the report for the U.S.
Army Air Corps on the future technological capabilities that might be used by the
military.
• Different approaches were tried, but the shortcomings of traditional forecasting
methods, such as theoretical approach, quantitative models or trend
extrapolation, in areas where precise scientific laws have not been established yet,
quickly became apparent.
• To cross these shortcomings, the Delphi method was developed by Project RAND
during the 1950-1960s (1959) by Olaf Helmet, Norman Dalkey, and Nicholas
Rescher.

6. Basic Delphi Method Process
• An initial questionnaire focusing on the identified problem is developed by expert
panels.
• An appropriate expert group is selected and questionnaire is sent to them.
• Each participant answers the questionnaire independently
• The questionnaire responses are summarized
• Feedback summary and a second questionnaire for the same respondent group is
developed
• After reviewing the feedback summary, respondents independently rate priority
ideas included in the second questionnaire
• The process is repeated until process committee feels positions are firm and
agreement on a topic is reached
• A final summary report is made and distributed

7. Delphi Method Work Flow

8. Properties of Delphi Method
Structuring of Information Flow
• The initial answers or contributions from the experts are collected in the
form of answers to questionnaires and their comments to these answers.
• The panel director controls the interactions among the participants by
processing the information and filtering out irrelevant content.
• This avoids the negative effects of face-to-face panel discussions and
solves the usual problems of group dynamics.

9. Properties of Delphi Method
Regular Feedback
• Participants comment on their own forecasts, the responses of others and
on the progress of the panel as a whole.
• At any moment they can revise their earlier statements.
• While in regular group meetings participants tend to stick to previously
stated opinions and often conform too much to group leader, the Delphi
method prevents it.

10. Properties of Delphi Method
Anonymity of the participants
• Usually all participants maintain Anonymous Identity.
• Their identity is not revealed even after the completion of the final report.
• This stops them from dominating others in the process using their
authority or personality,
• Frees them to some extent from their personal biases,
• Allows them to freely express their opinions, encourages open critique
and admitting errors by revising earlier judgments.

11. Facilitator Role
• The person or group who is coordinating the Delphi method can be known
as a facilitator or management team and facilitates the responses of their
panel of experts.
• The facilitator sends out questionnaires, surveys etc.
• Collects and analyzes responses , then identifies common and conflicting
viewpoints.
• If target is not reached, the process continues through rounds to gradually
work towards target achieving.

12. Delphi Method
When is it appropriate?
•In situations where there is no clear-cut resolution of a given problem.
•When time and cost constraints make frequent face-to-face meetings
difficult to arrange.
•When the heterogeneity of the participants must be preserved and
anonymity assured.

13. Delphi Method
When is it appropriate?
Factual questions should not be candidates for Delphi.
X "Given continued trends in immigration, birth, and death rates, the
population of Egypt in year 2017 will be?
The question of whether or not current population trends will continue
is a matter of judgment and, therefore, here Delphi is appropriate.

14. Delphi Practical Steps
• Step 1: Assign a process committee and/or a management team
• Step 2: Set up expert panels to prepare and formulate statement
• Step 3: Plan the whole process practical details
– How do expert panels meet
– What format and by what means is the questionnaires delivered
– How do you plan to analyze the answers
– How do you plan to present the feedback of the previous round
– will there be presentations and follow-up workshops between rounds
• Step 4: Decide fields of Delphi
• Step 5: Choose Question’s Design
– MCQ’s , Time Estimate Questions
– Questions with specific answer
– Open ended section
• Step 6: Follow steps in Basic Delphi Method

15. Avoid..
• A common mistake is to include two events in the same question
Example: "When will bicycles be made mostly of plastics and used in
urban transportation?"
Differences in the way people answer this question may stem not only
from their perceptions about future uses of plastic in bicycles, but also
from differences in their beliefs about when bicycles will likely be used
for urban transportation

16. Selecting Experts for Delphi
Process
• Science & Technology experts
• Investors and venture capitalists
• Technology transfer offices (TTOs), at universities and government
research laboratories.
• Large companies and industry groups.
• Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)
• Funding organizations.
• Finally, The larger the breadth of the experts used for scanning and
evaluating, the better and more accurate the forecasts.

17. Selecting Experts for Delphi
Process
• Some researchers attempted to introduce a refinement: self- rated
expertise .
• Example of self-rating:
1. Are you an expert in this field, working in it daily?
2. Do you work in this field occasionally?
3. Are you knowledgeable about this field through occasional professional
reading?
4. Would you classify yourself as an informed layman?
5. Are you uninformed about this field?
• Some will be humble, others …

18. Lock-and-Key Approach
In this approach, administrators attempt to match the capabilities of
participants with the requirements of the questions

19. Lock-and-Key Approach
This process could be automated. The program would have access
to a data base of the respondent's characteristics.
The program would call for question attributes and weights,
automatically scan the data base, score each respondent and
present a different rank ordered list of respondents for each question

20. Result Analysis Options
• Rankings
• Qualitative Clustering
• Different graphical illustrations
• Scenarios, timelines and roadmaps (what happens when)
• Software based calculations and matrices graphs

21. Result Analysis Options

22. Delphi Advantages for Use in CI
• Long term problems can be assessed.
• Reduces tacit and complex knowledge into a single statement
• Provides reliable judgment or forecast results.
• Enables better judgment in decision making in the present
• Allows sharing of information and reasoning among participants
• Conducive to independent thinking and gradual formulation
• Can be used to reach target among hostile groups to each other without
their knowledge.
• Can be an inexpensive way to create a census from large number of
participants.

23. Delphi Disadvantages for Use in CI
• Judgments are those of a selected group of people and may not be
representative
• Expert biasing, as top experts consider their own research specialty
relatively higher in importance to others.
• Tendency to eliminate extreme positions and force a middle-of-the-road
consensus
• More time-consuming than the group process method
• Requires skill in written communication
• Requires adequate time and participant commitment and ownership.

24. RT-Delphi
• The new approach, in Delphis is the RT-Delphi
• Basically, it is a round-less Delphi conducted online on the internet
• In RT-Delphis, each time, an expert visits the website, he/she views
his/her own earlier responses, and can modify the responses, based on
the new averages, medians, distributions, and reasons given by other
experts for their positions
• The information on the website is automatically updated whenever any
new input is entered from any participant

25. Real Time-Delphi Advantages
• Significantly saves time and cost; as it eliminates the huge manual effort
needed to send questionnaires, collect responses, and assemble data, in
each round of the study.
• Experts can reassess their positions as frequent as they want.
• Experts can be selected from any place in the world, and can have
instantaneous access to the website.
• Flexibility in the number of participants (no matter how many).
• It can be easily applied to problems formulated in a matrix design

26. Delphi Method VS. F2F Meetings

27. Success Factors of Delphi Method
• Talent of the Facilitator.
• Unbiased judgments of the Facilitator.
• Getting the right experts for the questionnaires.
• Experts taking responsibility of the problems in hand.

28. Implementation of the Delphi Method
- A Fictional Example
Background - I
• Custombikes is an Ottawa based company. Its main business operation is
enabling customers design their own bicycles with the help of professional
and manufacturing the designed bicycle within their own factory.
• The company specializes in creating custom bicycles and offers the best
customer service for the parts and other accessories.
• Custombikes is one of the biggest custom bicycle manufacturers in the
world. They continuously review the efficiency of manufacturing
processes and business practices to be sure that their actions, and those
of their employees, reflect their goals.

29. Implementation of the Delphi Method
- A Fictional Example
Background - II
• The objective of the company is to increase revenue by reaching more
customers with the joy of creating a bicycle on one`s own, and ordering
the bike online.
• In order to do this, they need to have enough information and feedback
regarding whether this initiative would be a good fit with their goals and
be an efficient and effective use of their financing, marketing, human
resources and manufacturing capacity.
• Since this is a big investment, the company needs to know the likely
outcome of this initiative in 10 year time frame.

30. Implementation of the Delphi Method
- A Fictional Example
Objective of the CI Need
• To understand whether it is feasible to implement an e-commerce
initiative for Custombikes.

31. Implementation of the Delphi Method
- A Fictional Example
Is Delphi the Right Choice?
• Custombikes is looking for a long term foresight
• The foresight needs to be determined via sharing of information and
reasoning among participants
• Inexpensive to implement (online surveys only, no workshops or panel
discussions)
• The main reason the company should choose to use Delphi method is the
that it would bring together technical, organizational, and personal
perspectives. The method is easily understood and thus accommodates
different understandings of forecasting and foresight.

32. Implementation of the Delphi Method
- A Fictional Example
Phases for Implementing the Method - Phase 1 - Brainstorming
Questionnaire 1
•Step 1: List four important factors that you think will affect the sales revenue
of Custombikes via e-commerce in Canada.
•Step 2: What are the other e-commerce initiatives/practices you are aware of
from competitors?
•Step 3: What could be the limitations for this initiative?

33. Implementation of the Delphi Method
- A Fictional Example
Phases for Implementing the Method - Phase 1 - Brainstorming
Questionnaire 1
•The questions form the first questionnaire that will be answered by the
experts in the company.
•Once the results are received, they are analyzed looking for commonalities
in answers, outstanding responses, and/or other possibilities/opportunities the
experts have mentioned in their responses.
•The responses will be examined in detail, in order to receive a good
understanding and give a relevant feedback.
•The creative stage of the Delphi study occurs when soliciting factors from
participants, while the ranking and weighting stages involve mainly
judgmental opinion.

34. Implementation of the Delphi Method
- A Fictional Example
Phases for Implementing the Method - Phase 1 - Brainstorming
Questionnaire 2
•This questionnaire is done to validate the consolidated list of factors and it
will list all the consolidated factors obtained from the first questionnaire and
will be grouped into categories.
•Based on the information provided by the experts in the previous
questionnaire, a one-sentence explanation for each factor and an explanatory
glossary will be included for defining and explaining each factor.
•Then, the exact copy of the responses will be delivered to the experts.

35. Implementation of the Delphi Method
- A Fictional Example
Phases for Implementing the Method - Phase 1 - Brainstorming
Questionnaire 2
This time they will be asked to conduct the 2nd questionnaire as below:
•Step 1: Verify the interpretation on the responses has been correctly made
and placed into right category.
•Step 2: Verify and categorize the important factors listed on how the sales
revenues will be affected if e-commerce initiative is used.
•At this stage, the experts will be able to refine and adjust their opinions,
suggest new ideas that they have not thought initially, and be able to make
more sound categorizations.
•Based on the two lists provided from the two questionnaires, lists and
categorizations will be further refined.

36. Implementation of the Delphi Method
- A Fictional Example
Phases for Implementing the Method - Phase 2 - Narrowing down
Questionnaire 3
This questionnaire is for choosing the most important factors.
It will be arranged to eliminate bias in the listed factors.
Thus, the questionnaire will be conducted as below:
•Step 1: Experts will be asked to select at least 10 factors they consider
important to e-commerce for Custombikes.
•Step 2: After all the responses are returned, each expert will be analyzed
separately to identify the factors selected by over 50% of the experts.
•This process enables us to reduce the list to a manageable size with no
more than 20 factors.

37. Implementation of the Delphi Method
- A Fictional Example
Phases for Implementing the Method - Phase 3 - Ranking
Questionnaire 4
•This questionnaire is executed for ranking the chosen factors.
•Each expert will submit a rank of categorized factors.
•Each ranked list will reflect the priority order: one ordering for each list
infrastructure and expediency for example.
•The questionnaire also will ask experts to submit comments explaining or
justifying their rankings.
•At the end of this phase, the priorities affecting e-commerce for Custombikes
that each of the experts placed on various factors will be represented.

38. Implementation of the Delphi Method
- A Fictional Example
Phases for Implementing the Method - Phase 3 - Ranking
Questionnaire 4
.
•This process assures that the factors in the list are the most important, and
that the rankings are a valid indicator of the relative importance of the various
factors.
•Based on these results, propositions will be offered by reassessing the
theoretical observations for e-commerce in Custombikes.
•After all the phases are executed, a SWOT analysis will be conducted using
the information gathered from the Delphi method, in order to provide usable
data and analysis for management to base their decisions and planning.

39. Implementation of the Delphi Method
- A Fictional Example
Statement
• Custombikes will have a bigger market share in the world in
ten years with the additional online sales channel.

40. Thank You