Delphi method: analysis of rounds, stakeholder and statistical indicators

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this study is to review the literature on the Delphi method, its characteristics and current applications through an analysis of recent most-cited scientific papers, with an emphasis on three axes, namely, the number of rounds used, stakeholder participation relevance or only academic experts’ participation and the possibility of using indicators or techniques different from those related to descriptive statistics. Design/methodology/approach In total, 57 papers were initially reviewed, 10 of them with a high citation rate. Then, an analysis was made of papers in Scopus for the period 2015-2018 published in the Technological Forecasting and Social Change Journal and in the Futures and Foresight Journal, which had the characteristic of displaying quartile Q1 or Q2 in Scimago in addition to being in Scopus. Findings Among the main results, the authors observe the tendency to use fewer rounds, a higher prevalence of stakeholder participation and not only academic experts but also the use of new types of modified Delphi such as real-time spatial Delphi, Delphi group, market Delphi, real-world Delphi and policy Delphi. Originality/value Among the conclusions, the possibility of using other indicators or complementary techniques to the descriptive statistics is highlighted such as number of justifications or comments between rounds, coefficients to quantify the competence or degree of expertise of the participants, measures of the perception of the expert on the usefulness of the presented feedback, graphs of the number of arguments according to the number of questions, the Wilcoxon Ranked Pairs Test, the k means, Kolmogorov–Simonov test and the Mann–Whitney U-test.

Impulsores, barreras y motivaciones para el emprendimiento rural de los millennials en Antioquia-Colombia/ Drivers, barriers and motivations for rural entrepreneurship of millennials in Antioquia-Colombia

“…Uno de los criterios para valorar la opinión de los expertos, respecto a su grado de conocimiento y argumentación, se constituye a partir del cálculo de competencia experta (Zartha, et al, 2019), donde once de los participantes se ubicaron por encima del valor de 0,8 el cual se considera alto (Zartha et al, 2017), mientras que el resto estuvo por debajo de este valor (ver Tabla 3).…”

“…Para el desarrollo de este trabajo se utilizó la técnica Delphi (Campos, Melián y Sanchis, 2014;Zartha, Halal y Hernández, 2019), con el propósito de conocer aspectos para promover el emprendimiento rural en población joven categorizada como millennials, para lo cual se indagó a un grupo de dieciséis individuos (ver Tabla 2), pertenecientes a instituciones públicas y privadas del Departamento de Antioquia en Colombia. Fuente: Elaboración propia, 2020.…”

Towards Circular Social Housing: An Exploration of Practices, Barriers, and Enablers

“…The former is related to the selection of experts who have sufficient knowledge and experience in a specific domain [82], whereas the latter concerns the ideal number of participants in a Delphi panel. Sossa and colleagues [83] observed a tendency towards using a fewer number of panellists in academic research. Although there is no unique rule for the panel size, it is suggested to keep the participant number between 5 and 20 [82].…”

Estudio de prospectiva al 2032 de la cadena de plátano, un enfoque hacia los programas académicos del sector agroindustrial

“…Fase I se utiliza diferentes técnicas tales como: moda, frecuencia modal y porcentaje de consenso, técnicas que han sido referenciadas en estudios previos (Zartha et al, 2019), con su respectivo informe ejecutivo. Para el análisis estadístico de la primera ronda se tuvo en cuenta la aplicación a cada uno de los 55 ítems del valor de la moda, la frecuencia modal y el porcentaje de consenso (frecuencia modal/número total de respuestas), de tal forma que fueran insumo para las siguientes consideraciones: Temas prioritarios: moda 4 o 5 y porcentaje de consenso por encima del promedio del grupo (éste se refiere al agrupador temático, en este caso fueron 5 agrupadores, cada uno con su respectivo promedio).…”