Examples of Delphi structures

There are a number of "classic" structures that have been used very successfully many times in the past forty years and have been the basis of a number of proprietary organizational studies. They can each be used on a wide range of similar problems. Some of them have been utilized in online exercises using bulletin boards and auxiliary software such as survey packages. A few have been fully implemented in software. These are the original Policy Delphi structure and most recently the Problem Solving Delphi.

Delphi structures
An online Delphi is extremely dynamic and what used to take months using paper and pencil processes can now be done in a few days or a few weeks. Some particular urgent real time problems such as those in the area of Emergency Management can be dealt with in less than an hour by small groups of 10 to 20 dispersed participants. In an online continuous Delphi process, any participant at any time may:
 * Focus on the particular topic they want to deal with
 * Be informed of changes since he or she was last using the system
 * Be able to create new material, new comments, new options to vote on, etc.
 * Be able to vote or change their vote
 * Defer voting until there is more information about an item to make a judgment
 * Allow lists of items to which additions can be made or current items edited
 * Arrange such lists dynamically according the attached voting scale results
 * View vote results to show differences by voters with different backgrounds
 * Provide dynamic collaborative tagging to create new classifications of items and lists
 * Show the status of voting with respect to number voting and vote changes for each item as well as the vote distribution.

General types of Delphi processes
The following are the general types of Delphi processes that apply to a large number of applications: Each of the above has specific characteristics that are summarized in the following tables:
 * Trend Delphi: produces a forecast of a trend along with the mental model of the group making the extrapolation of the trend curve into the future.
 * Problem Solving Delphi: Collects solutions to the problem which are rescaled to a group interval scale based upon individuals ranking or paired comparisons. Use voting to focus discussion on items that need it.
 * Policy Delphi: seeks policy resolutions and the strongest pro and con evidence or arguments to support each policy resolution.
 * Cross Impact Modeling: Collaborative building of a model of the future possible outcomes of a set of unique events.

Cross Impact Modeling
Cross Impact is the one of the most challenging areas of interface design today as it is the concept of allowing users to build their own models without having to program the model Cross Impact Analysis.

Conclusion
Delphi has been in active use since its invention in the 1960's. Unfortunately, there are probably more examples of unsuccessful Delphi exercises than successful ones in that it sounds like a simple process – it is anything but that. There is a lot of effort and careful planning to do a successful one with a quality group of participants. Some of the best Delphis over the years were unfortunately proprietary and were never published. There have also been some very interesting controlled experiments. One experiment shows that online Delphi exercises are more productive with respect to improvisation and creativity that exhibits novelty is than unstructured online discussions without voting. Another shows that the only time middle managers in a major corporation are willing to discuss prior past decisions as possible mistakes in planning the future of the company is when they can be anonymous in an online discussion rather than using their real name.