Delphi Method — Structured Expert Consensus

The Delphi method is a structured, iterative survey technique developed by Norman Dalkey and Olaf Helmer at the RAND Corporation in 1963 for eliciting and converging expert opinion on complex topics where empirical data are unavailable or insufficient. It collects independent judgements from a geographically dispersed expert panel over multiple anonymous rounds, feeding aggregated results back to participants after each round so they can revise their views in light of the group's collective position.