Forecasting and Management of Technology, Second Edition

3.6 Conclusions

Managing forecasting projects requires many of the management qualities necessary for managing other projects. However, because forecasting differs in essential ways from other projects, there are management differences as well. The manager must carefully bound the forecasting task and determine the information required by the decision the forecast is intended to support. Careful scheduling is required to ensure completion of the project on time and within budget. Dynamics among team members tend to be more complex, and iteration and forecasting by several methods are generally required to produce a satisfactory product. Finally, because the forecast is a multi-skill product, special attention must be given to management structures and communications patterns that acknowledge the need for substantive knowledge and contributions from a variety of fields.

This book is organized according to a staged model of decision making, as discussed in Section 3.2. Techniques are discussed in the phase of decision making where they are most likely to be of assistance. These first three chapters constitute an introduction to technology forecasting. The exploration (cold) phase of technology forecasting begins in Chapter 4. Chapter 5 continues the exploration theme by discussing the range of information available to the forecaster, especially electronic sources of information such as the Internet and science and technology databases. The next phase of decision making, analysis ...