Real-Time Delphi

Real-Time Delphi is a roundless, asynchronous, computer-mediated reinvention of the classic Delphi method, developed by Theodore Gordon and Adam Pease in 2006. Where conventional Delphi proceeds through discrete questionnaire rounds — collect, aggregate, redistribute, repeat — Real-Time Delphi collapses the rounds entirely: experts log in to an online platform whenever they choose, see the panel's current aggregate estimates and the rationales behind them, and revise their own answers continuously, with the aggregate updating live as they do. This always-on feedback architecture preserves the core Delphi virtues of anonymity and structured feedback while removing the long delays, fixed schedules, and administrative burden of round-based administration. As described by Gordon and Pease and catalogued in the Millennium Project's Futures Research Methodology, the method makes large, distributed, and time-pressured expert elicitations practical, letting a panel converge through continuous interaction rather than through a rigid sequence of rounds.