Editor's Note: Take a look at our featured best practice, Complete Toolkit for Improving Meetings (30-slide PowerPoint presentation). Wasting valuable resources in unproductive and inefficient meetings can be one of the biggest avoidable costs for any business. This Meetings Toolkit has been complied to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of Meetings with tools and templates designed using direct feedback from many [read more]
Zeroing in on Delphi: When Complex Issues Require the Most Effective Approach
* * * *
In today’s business environment, management consulting firms must be ready to address client challenges and needs that will 
transform their business by 10 or 100 times. Tools and methods must be scaled up to ensure applicability to the widest possible audience globally.
The Consulting Workshop Series provides a good understanding of the 10 methods of conducting Workshops that are custom designed to fit specific workshop objectives. Different methods are developed for the purpose of providing organizations the most appropriate tool necessary to support organizations in their Strategic Planning.
If it is the management’s goal to expose all opinions and options regarding a complex issue, then the Delphi Workshop Method is the perfect approach to undertake. By using Delphi, organizations can gain the benefits of pooling and exchanging opinions to learn from other’s views.
Understanding Delphi as a Consulting Workshop Series Method
Delphi is a structured communication technique originally developed as a systematic interactive forecasting method that relies on a panel of experts. Its main objective is to expose all opinions and options regarding a complex issue.
Delphi is most effectively used in technology forecasting, as well as business forecasting such as sales of new products. It is used in the implementation of multi-stakeholder approaches for participating policy-making. It is also effective in patent participation identification and public policy issues such as economic trends, health, and education.
A dialectical process, it has been designed to provide the benefits of pooling and exchanging of opinions to learn from other’s views.
Discovering the Delphi Approach
Delphi can be approached in 3 different angles. Depending on the objective of the activity, we can determine which is the most strategic way to approach Delphi.
- The Conventional Delphi. Called a pen and paper Delphi, it is aimed at a consensus of the most probable future by iteration. It has three main characteristics: the anonymity of the participants, the structuring of information flow, and regular feedback. These three key characteristics help participants focus on the issues at hand.
- The Policy Delphi. The Policy Delphi is a tool for analysis of policy issues. It is employed to generate the strongest possible opposing views on the potential resolutions of a major issue. Generating a consensus is not its primary objective and survey questionnaires are given greater emphasis.
- The Delphi Conference. A Group Delphi, it allows for more discussions and debate. In the Delphi Conference, participants forego anonymity. Time constraints may require a fixed number of cycles and consensus can be increased from one to two rounds of voting. The Delphi Conference often takes less time than the traditional Delphi.
In undertaking the Conventional Delphi, the Policy Delphi, and the Delphi Conference, organizations must be keen on following the right procedure in undertaking any of these Delphi. Because of its different approaches, the steps that are undertaken also varies. Taking the right step is necessary for better understanding and clarity of flow, as well as optimizing the use of Delphi in achieving Operational Excellence as one of the appropriate results at the end of the activity.
Interested in gaining more understanding of the Delphi consulting workshop method? You can learn more and download an editable PowerPoint about Consulting Workshop Series: Delphi here on the Flevy documents marketplace.
Do You Find Value in This Framework?
You can download in-depth presentations on this and hundreds of similar business frameworks from the FlevyPro Library. FlevyPro is trusted and utilized by 1000s of management consultants and corporate executives. Here’s what some have to say:
“My FlevyPro subscription provides me with the most popular frameworks and decks in demand in today’s market. They not only augment my existing consulting and coaching offerings and delivery, but also keep me abreast of the latest trends, inspire new products and service offerings for my practice, and educate me in a fraction of the time and money of other solutions. I strongly recommend FlevyPro to any consultant serious about success.”
– Bill Branson, Founder at Strategic Business Architects
“As a niche strategic consulting firm, Flevy and FlevyPro frameworks and documents are an on-going reference to help us structure our findings and recommendations to our clients as well as improve their clarity, strength, and visual power. For us, it is an invaluable resource to increase our impact and value.”
– David Coloma, Consulting Area Manager at Cynertia Consulting
“As a small business owner, the resource material available from FlevyPro has proven to be invaluable. The ability to search for material on demand based our project events and client requirements was great for me and proved very beneficial to my clients. Importantly, being able to easily edit and tailor the material for specific purposes helped us to make presentations, knowledge sharing, and toolkit development, which formed part of the overall program collateral. While FlevyPro contains resource material that any consultancy, project or delivery firm must have, it is an essential part of a small firm or independent consultant’s toolbox.”
– Michael Duff, Managing Director at Change Strategy (UK)
“FlevyPro has been a brilliant resource for me, as an independent growth consultant, to access a vast knowledge bank of presentations to support my work with clients. In terms of RoI, the value I received from the very first presentation I downloaded paid for my subscription many times over! The quality of the decks available allows me to punch way above my weight – it’s like having the resources of a Big 4 consultancy at your fingertips at a microscopic fraction of the overhead.”
– Roderick Cameron, Founding Partner at SGFE Ltd
“Several times a month, I browse FlevyPro for presentations relevant to the job challenge I have (I am a consultant). When the subject requires it, I explore further and buy from the Flevy Marketplace. On all occasions, I read them, analyze them. I take the most relevant and applicable ideas for my work; and, of course, all this translates to my and my clients’ benefits.”
– Omar Hernán Montes Parra, CEO at Quantum SFE
66-slide PowerPoint presentation
There are good meetings, and there are bad meetings. Bad meetings appear to drag on forever, they never seem to get to the point and are a waste of time. Effective meetings leave us energized and feel that we have really accomplished something.
This presentation provides a simple three-step [read more]
Do You Want to Implement Business Best Practices?
You can download in-depth presentations on Meeting Facilitation and 100s of management topics from the FlevyPro Library. FlevyPro is trusted and utilized by 1000s of management consultants and corporate executives.
For even more best practices available on Flevy, have a look at our top 100 lists:
- Top 100 in Strategy & Transformation
- Top 100 in Digital Transformation
- Top 100 in Operational Excellence
- Top 100 in Organization & Change
- Top 100 Management Consulting Frameworks
These best practices are of the same as those leveraged by top-tier management consulting firms, like McKinsey, BCG, Bain, and Accenture. Improve the growth and efficiency of your organization by utilizing these best practice frameworks, templates, and tools. Most were developed by seasoned executives and consultants with over 20+ years of experience.
Readers of This Article Are Interested in These Resources
59-slide PowerPoint presentation
Getting the most out of a group of people working together in a meeting or workshop is not always easy. Sometimes, for various reasons, the potential of the group is just never realized. To be effective as a professional facilitator, the facilitator has to be well-prepared and employ a range of [read more]
|
|
18-slide PowerPoint presentation
|
|
23-slide PowerPoint presentation
| |||
About Joseph Robinson
Joseph Robinson is the Vice President of Strategy at Flevy. Flevy is the marketplace for best practices in business management. Learn how the Fortune 100 and global consulting firms do it. Improve the growth and efficiency of your organization by leveraging Flevy's library of best practice methodologies and templates. The documents at Flevy (https://flevy.com) are of the same caliber as those produced by top-tier management consulting firms, like McKinsey, BCG, Bain, and Accenture. Most were developed by seasoned executives and consultants with 20+ years of experience. Flevy covers 200+ management topics, ranging from Digital Transformation to Growth Strategy to Lean Management. You can peruse a full list of management topics available on Flevy here. Prior to Flevy, Joseph worked as an Associate at BCG and holds an MBA from the Sloan School of Management at MIT. You can connect with Joseph on LinkedIn here.
