Norman C. Dalkey oversees a Delphi Experiment

At RAND in the 1950s and 1960s, Olaf Helmer, Norman Dalkey and others developed the Delphi method to establish consensus within a group.  Experiments on various aspects of the method were conducted at RAND; here Dalkey oversees one.  Early work on the method was published in Management Science.   Since independence and anonymity of opinion formation is at the method's core, participants are in separate cubicles, a contrast to group discussions around a table. Image courtesy of the RAND Archives.