[Jenny Hatch]

What year did your two friends develop that Delphi Technique and why did they choose that particular name for it?

Just curious.

Jen

[JoeFromSidney]

Olaf Helmer and Norman Dalkey of the RAND Corporation developed what they called Delphi some time in the late 1950s or early 1960s. Their first use was to get estimates from industrial leaders of how long it would take for industry to recover from a nuclear attack. So far as I know, the resulting report was never declassified.

Dalkey and Helmer published an unclassified Delphi forecast of space technology in 1964. I read that report shortly after it was published. I decided to try an experiment with RAND Delphi, and my results were published in the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT in 1968. I've had other articles on RAND Delphi published in TECHNOLOGICAL FORECASTING AND SOCIAL CHANGE since then. I've used the technique numerous times for government and industrial clients.

I never asked why the name was chosen, but I always assumed it was because the first use was as a forecast, hence "Delphic."

The important point is not to let the "social engineers" hoodwink you with the tale that what you're being subjected to was developed at RAND.