The Delphi Method

There are countless models used across all sorts of industries and realms of inquiry meant to help aid in our forecasting of future outcomes based on existing bodies of data.

So we might try to predict what the weather will be like in a particular region based on models informed by earlier weather data.

We might also try to predict which stocks will pop and which will collapse, and when.

We could attempt to predict the outcome of a military conflict between saber-rattling nations; we use these sorts of frameworks for all sorts of things, and they vary in reliability depending on what it is we're trying to predict and how many knowable and unknowable numbers and variables exist within the relevant space, and based on the availability of data (and the reliability of that data) and our capacity to crunch said data in meaningful ways.

The Delphi Method is an approach to forecasting that relies upon a panel of experts communicating with each other in a structured, arm’s-length fashion.