Rational and Explicit Methods
The whole purpose of the recitation of alternatives, is to show that there really is no alternative to forecasting. If a decisionmaker has several alternatives open to him, he will choose among them on the basis of which provides him with the most desirable outcome. Thus his decision is inevitably based on a forecast. His only choice is whether the forecast is obtained by rational and explicit methods, or by intuitive means.
The virtues of the use of rational methods are as follows:
- They can be taught and learned,
- They can be described and explained,
- They provide a procedure followable by anyone who has absorbed the necessary training, and in some cases,
- These methods are even guaranteed to produce the same forecast regardless of who uses them.
The virtue of the use of explicit methods is that they can be reviewed by others, and can be checked for consistency. Furthermore, the forecast can be reviewed at any subsequent time. Technology forecasting is not imagination.
Read more about this topic: Technology Forecasting
Famous quotes containing the words rational, explicit and/or methods:
“I often wish for the end of the wretched remnant of my life; and that wish is a rational one; but then the innate principle of self-preservation, wisely implanted in our natures, for obvious purposes, opposes that wish, and makes us endeavour to spin out our thread as long as we can, however decayed and rotten it may be.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“... the Ovarian Theory of Literature, or, rather, its complement, the Testicular Theory. A recent camp follower ... of this explicit theory is ... Norman Mailer, who has attributed his own gift, and the literary gift in general, solely and directly to the possession of a specific pair of organs. One writes with these organs, Mailer has said ... and I have always wondered with what shade of ink he manages to do it.”
—Cynthia Ozick (b. 1928)
“Parents ought, through their own behavior and the values by which they live, to provide direction for their children. But they need to rid themselves of the idea that there are surefire methods which, when well applied, will produce certain predictable results. Whatever we do with and for our children ought to flow from our understanding of and our feelings for the particular situation and the relation we wish to exist between us and our child.”
—Bruno Bettelheim (20th century)