5 June 2007
The Delphi Method: Forebearer of Open Source and Internet Community Decision- Making?
Posted by Greig under: Asides; Updates .
Delphi is a town in Greece at the foot of Mount Parnassus where, in ancient times, the Oracle would help leaders make decisions by consulting with the Gods. In modern times, our political leaders likely do not consult psychics or even try to venture into the Matrix to find “The Oracle”, like Neo (maybe they will sometime soon). 
Our governing bodies get together face-to-face, in the traditional way, to discuss the decisions that ought to be made to best-suit the people. Any national/state/provincial congress is a good example of how the in situ decision-making process can quickly digress to a shouting match, even if those shouting are the best people to be making these decisions (big “if”). But, what is happening on the internet? With open-source becoming such a buzz-word and producing successful, astoundingly accurate collaborations of scholars and scientists like Wikipedia, the necessity and wisdom of having people sit face-to-face to make decisions is being challenged.
In-situ group decision-making has always had the problem of being strongly influenced by social dynamics created by the group rather than rational examination and assessment of the opinions, suggestions, and strategies put forth by the group members. All too often, members are easily persuaded, manipulated, and coerced by other members of the group by various means, including subtle changes in tone of voice, use of humour, social status, or even outright aggression and threats. The result are decisions made by experts that would have been different had they been able to express there opinion anonymously.
Where have all these problems been averted in group decision-making? The internet is an obvious example. The ability to pass on one’s opinion or expertise on topics instantly and anonymously by commenting on blogs, community forums, or discussion groups has given birth to remarkable creations like the online free encyclopedia, Wikipedia, and the free web-development platforms , Drupal and Joomla, as well as num. It has taken the risk out of stating ones opinions and ideas and stimulated creative communication among a huge and diverse audience.
But what may come as a surprise is that this idea isn’t new. Government and industry have used something called the Delphi process for decades. When the US was interested in the possibilities for futuristic non-surface warfare in the late 1940’s and 1950’s they hired the RAND Corporation to create a forecast. RAND decided that expert opinion was permissible as testimony because of the uncertainty involved in predicting future trends. However, how could consensus be reached or even a brief conclusive statement be created that summed up numerous expert opinions?
The answer the RAND Corporation came up with is the Delphi method. The Delphi method is defined as an exercise in group communication among a panel of geographically dispersed experts. Sound familiar? As you can imagine, the difficulty and expense of getting a group of experts from across the country together and having them sat down in a room until they came to a consensus would have invited the suggestion of any possible alternative.
The general process varies but the fundamental process involves:
- each member in the group given a questionnaire to fill out,
- the opinions are aggregated and constructive feedback and criticism of them are encouraged by all members of the group,
- feedback is then shown to all members,
- and each contributer is then given the chance to change his/her original opinion.
- This process is iterated at least once and all members are guaranteed anonymity.
If interaction with the online community interests you, you may want to visit www.zefrank.org. Here Ze (short for Hose), has been experimenting with conversations with the online community through his year-long video blog and dozens of other projects.
