Technology Forecasting and Assessment

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Technology Forecasting and Assessment

• MGT 513

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Outline

• Porter, Chapters 6 -8
• Trend analysis
• Linstone
• Van Wyck
• Qui
• Discussion of Technologies

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Chapter 6 General Methodological Issues
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• Forecasting is a means of generating
  knowledge-in other words, a form of inquiry.
  (A.L. Porter, A. T. Roper, T. W. Mason, F. A.
  Rossini, J. Banks)
• In 1971 Churchman introduced five inquiring
  systems that span most of scientific inquiry and
  other areas of inquiry as well
• Core of Churchman's approach different systems
  of inquiry produce different types of knowledge

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Five Underlying Philosophical Approaches to
Knowledge Generation
Source Based on Mitroff and Turoff, 1973
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Strategies and Techniques for Forecasting

• Forecasting strategy can be divided into two
  parts
• Strategy used to conduct the technical
  aspects-that is selecting forecasting techniques
  and applications
• Strategy for communicating forecasts to users,
  which depends on the character and needs of the
  user needs

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Five Most Frequently Employed Families of
Forecasting Techniques

• Monitoring is the process of scanning the
  environment for information about the subject of
  a forecast.
• Strengths monitoring can provide large amounts
  of useful information from a wide range of
  sources.
• Weaknesses information overload can result
  without selectivity, filtering, and structure.
• Uses to maintain current awareness of an area
  and the information with which to forecast as
  needed.

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Families of Forecasting Techniques

• Expert Opinion the opinions of experts in a
  particular area are obtained and analyzed.
• Strengths Expert forecasts can tap high-quality
  models internalized by experts who cannot or will
  not make them explicit.
• Weaknesses it is difficult to identify experts.
  Their forecasts are often wrong. Questions posed
  are often ambiguous or unclear.
• Uses to forecast when identifiable experts in
  area exist and where data are lacking and
  modeling is difficult or impossible.

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Families of Forecasting Techniques

• Trend Analysis uses mathematical and statistical
  techniques to extend time series data into the
  future.
• Strengths it offers substantial, data-based
  forecast of quantifiable parameters and is
  especially accurate over short time frames.
• Weaknesses it often requires a significant
  amount of good data to be effective and works
  only for quantifiable parameters.
• Uses to project quantifiable parameters and to
  analyze adoption and substitution of technologies.

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Families of Forecasting Techniques

• Modeling is to simply represent the stucture and
  dynamics of some part of the real world.
• Strengths models can exhibit future behavior of
  complex systems simply by isolating important
  system aspects from unessential detail.
• Weaknesses sophisticated techniques may obscure
  faulty assumptions and provide a spurious
  credibility for poor forecasts.

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Families of Forecasting Techniques

• Scenarios are sets of snapshots of some aspect
  of the future and/or future histories leading
  from the present to the future.
• Strengths they can present rich, complex
  portraits of possible futures and incorporate a
  wide range of information. They are an effective
  way of communicating forecasts to a wide variety
  of users
• Weaknesses they may be more fantasy than
  forecast, unless a firm basis in reality is
  maintained by the forecaster.

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Popular Approaches to Forecasting Qualitative
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Popular Approaches to Forecasting Quantitative
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Trend Analysis

• US Healthcare example

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THE FOLLOWING STEPS ARE USED TO COMPUTE THE
COMPOUND RATE OF GROWTH AND PRODUCE CHART 1
U.S. HEALTH CARE EXPENDITURES IN CURRENT
DOLLARS drawn correctly with a logarithmic scale
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Step by Step

• Open a blank worksheet. While in Winows (as
  shown in Figure 1A ), click the icon indicated
  "Microsoft Excel" to run Excel. EXCEL opens a
  new work sheet named "Book 1" at this time (as
  shown in Figure 2A).
• 2. Type in the five column headings and the data
  for columns A B as provided in Figure 2B. The
  year is the independent variable and the health
  expenditure (in current ) is the dependent
  variable.
• Column C is calculated as the logarithm of the
  independent variable (column B). It is in the
  Natural Log, LN (or Log base e). The formula is
  _at_LN (cell location of the value in column B)
  for example, _at_LN(B3). Note that the
  specification of cell B3 is a relative location
  or address, which means the cell B3 is actually
  recorded as the cell in the column to the left of
  cell C3. Copying this cell formula to cell C4
  will convert the designation to _at_LN(B4).
• After selecting cell C3 (by pointing to cell C3),
  enter the above formula in cell C3. To format
  cell C3 for two decimal places, press the right
  mouse button to recall a small menu, and choose
  Format Cells to change the format of the cell.
  You will see a dialog box as shown in Figure 3A.
  In Format Cell box, choose Number and set
  Decimal places to 2.

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CHART 2

• REMOVING THE EFFECT OF INFLATION - HEALTH CARE
  EXPENDITURES IN CURRENT DOLLARS RELATIVE TO
  CONSTANT DOLLARS

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Chart 3

• U.S. HEALTH CARE EXPENDITURES IN CONSTANT
  DOLLARS RELATIVE TO U.S. DISPOSABLE PERSONAL
  INCOME IN CONSTANT DOLLARS

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Trend Analysis of Health Care in US
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Ch. 7 The Stimulation of Creativity
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• Forecasting requires the capacity to envision
  what the future might hold
• This capacity could be enhanced by applying
  techniques to stimulate the creativity of
  forecasters and technology managers

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The Five Key Elements of Creativity (J. P.
Guilford 1959)

• Fluency the ability to provide ideas in volume
• Flexibility the ability to bend familiar
  concepts into new shapes or to jump from old
  concepts to new ones
• Originality relates to the unusualness of ideas
• Awareness the ability to perceive connections
  and possibilities beyond the obvious
• Drive relates to the motivation of individuals
• "Creativity is one percent inspiration and
  ninety-nine percent perspiration." (T. Edison)

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Techniques for Enhancing Individual Creativity

• Lateral Thinking
• Metaphors and Analogies
• Checklists
• Morphological Analysis
• Random Words

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Lateral thinking

• lateral thinking provides a way to restructure
  and escape from old patterns (created by human
  minds) and to provoke new ones (de Bono, 1970)
• It encourages full use of our natural
  pattern-making capacity without hindering
  creativity

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Lateral Thinking Vs. Vertical Thinking
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Techniques that Use Lateral Thinking Principles

• Suspended Judgment consists of avoiding early
  judgment in the search for ideas to stimulate
  creativity
• Fractionation helps to visualize a fixed pattern
  in different ways by dismantling the problems
  into parts or fractions
• Reversal consists of reversing the problem to
  see what new patterns emerge

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Metaphors and Analogies

• Metaphors are words or phrases applied to
  concepts or objects that they do not literally
  denote. Example the systems has bugs!
• Analogies express recognition of similarities
  between otherwise dissimilar things. Example the
  car rides as smooth as silk!
• Either invites comparisons that reject
  established patterns and force us to adopt a
  different perspective that can produce new
  solutions to old problems

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Checklists

• Building checklists can spur creativity, forcing
  managers to think of possibilities and providing
  a framework that suggests completeness and
  consistency and that highlights omissions

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Morphological Analysis

• Combines features of fractionation and checklists
  and expands them in a powerful new direction
• Fractionation is applied to choose the parameters
  of importance to a concept
• Then the possibilities for each concept are
  defined
• A checklist is created by making an exhaustive
  list of all combinations of the possibilities
• is intended to provide a disciplined framework
  for creativity

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Random Words

• Bring about a fresh association of ideas and
  trigger new concepts or new perspectives of
  familiar ones
• Represent different paths to solving the problem
  that would never emerge from our preconceived
  notion of its pattern

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Techniques for Enhancing Group Creativity

• Defining group to stimulate group creativity is
  important because technology managers and
  forecasters often work as members of one group

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Brainstorming

• The members of a brainstorming group are asked to
  respond to a central problem or theme
• Emphasis in the process is on generating a large
  number of ideas (fluency)
• Criticism or evaluation is deferred (suspended
  judgment)

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Continued

• The four general guidelines in brainstorming
• free-wheeling and wild ideas are welcome
• A large number of ideas is sought
• Participants are encouraged to combine ideas into
  new or better ones
• Criticism is ruled out
• Since the group members own the ideas generated
  during the process, their support may be greater
  for implementing the solutions derived from them

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Crawford Slip Writing

• The process is named for professor C. C. Crawford
  of the university of Southern California who
  first used it to help prepare training manuals
• Participants write as many answers to the problem
  as possible in a defined time on separate index
  cards or slips
• The ideas generated are then sorted into various
  categories
• Unlike brainstorming, this technique preserves
  the anonymity of the participants

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Video- Malcolm Gladwell What we can learn from
spaghetti sauce
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Ch. 8 Monitoring
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• Monitoring is to watch, observe, check, and keep
  up with developments, usually in a well-defined
  area of interest for a very specific purpose
  (Coates et al., 1986)

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Categories of Monitoring

• Technological monitoring means scanning the
  appropriate environment for information that
  pertains to a particular technology
• Contextual monitoring/issues monitoring the
  organized activity of identifying emerging
  trends, concerns, or issues likely to affect and
  organization in the next few years and developing
  a wider and more positive range of organizational
  responses toward that future (Coates et al.,
  1986)

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Choices Involved in Monitoring

• Time frame
• Technology preimplementation monitoring is
  likely to have limited resources and uncertain
  management commitment
• Imminent decision suggests an attentive and
  anxious audience with specific concerns in final
  report
• Postdecision implies evaluative monitoring

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Continued

• Monitoring Process
• One-time study it must ensure that it does not
  narrow the monitoring focus prematurely and miss
  significant influences
• Ongoing monitoring it has the advantage of
  compiling contextual information over a long
  period that can be used to form more precise
  inquiries

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Continued

• Focus the monitoring system must have a clear
  focus and precise objectives to avoid becoming
  irrelevant to the organization.
• Technological
• Contextual
• Breadth
• Macromonitoring encompasses a whole spectrum
  (such as the information technologies)
• Micromonitoring focus on one technology (such as
  the computer)

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Continued

• Purpose
• Forecasting
• Others such as choosing a future course.
  Example the Chinese government monitors
  technology developments in other advanced nations

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Continued

• Developmental stage
• Invention monitoring focuses on how to reduce
  technological uncertainty based on engineering
  information
• Innovation monitoring used to determine whether
  a technology will succeed in some market based on
  market knowledge
• Established technology monitoring draw upon
  historical pattern information
• Emerging technology monitoring draw on more
  diffuse information

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Monitoring Steps

• Determine monitoring objectives and focus to
  avoid overwhelming amounts of information
• Describe technology and map its context
• To define critical parameters or milestones to
  monitor
• To identify relationships among technologies and
  vital contextual socioeconomic influences

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Continued

• Adapt and appropriate monitoring strategy

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Continued

• Interpret and communicate results
• data do not speak for themselves
• Multiple communication channels improve the
  chances of successfully transmitting information
• Maps
• Milestones
• Graphical presentations

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Monitoring Process Implementation

• Involves three main issues
• Who should conduct monitoring?
• Informal monitoring anyone who alertly keeps
  track of information obtained from routine
  sources (journals, browsing,)
• Formal monitoring a range of performers or
  experts that can use information from targeted
  sources (search firms, specialized studies,)

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Continued

• How should monitoring be conducted
• Traditionally using printed papers
• Electronically using internet and databases
• Integrating monitoring with other forecasting
  techniques
• This is needed because most of the time
  monitoring provides one component of a forecast,
  which is gathering of information

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Management of Technology New Frameworks

• MOT is important to competitiveness
• Primary industry needs for MOT
• Article about Frameworks
• How about them definitions

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Magnificent 8

• How to Integrate Technology into firm Strategy?
• How to get into and out of technologies faster?
• How to access and evaluate technologies better?
• How to best accomplish tech Transfer?
• How to reduce New product development Time?
• How to manage large complex interdis projects?
• How to manage firms internal use of technology?
• How to leverage the effectiveness of technos ?

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The Significant 6

• Definition of technology
• Framework for artifacts
• System of classification
• Description of patterns of change in tech
• Review of limits in tech
• A social profile of preferences as they impact
  Technology

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Definition of technology

• Technology is the created capability
• Products, tools, devices, instruments are the
  fruit of technologies

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A framework for individual artifacts

• Basicly technology discription covered last time

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System of classification

• Technology function as an approach
• Similar to previous lecture

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Patterns or trends

• Increasing
• Efficiencies, capacity, compactness, accuracy,
  size range, complexity
• Page 346

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Technology limits

• Efficiencies, capacity, compactness, accuracy,
  size range, complexity
• Plot to theoretical limit
• Page 347

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Societal Preference

• Allergy societal rejection of a tech
• Deviation partial acceptance computers at
  home
• Enforced penetration society enforced by
  government decree smog control
• Synergy, Enthusiastic acceptance

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Discussion of Technologies

• See them under technologies

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What Did We cover

• Listone 3 Eras
• Van Wyk on MOT framework
• General Technology Forecasting Methods
• Stimulation of Creativity
• Monitoring

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Next week

• Porter 9-10
• Henrrickson reading
• Quiz 5