Mistrust is a serious problem for organizations. So much has been written about functional biases and misaligned incentives that one wonders how anyone can trust a forecast provider. Well, now we have some studies that shed new light on the factors that can build or impede trust in forecasting....

Goodwin introduces his article with an incident in Italy when seven people (engineers, scientists, and a civil servant) were jailed following an earthquake in the city of L?Aquila in which 309 people died. At the trial it was alleged that they had failed in their duty by not properly assessing...

The most recent three issues of Foresight featured Steve Morlidge’s encyclopedic rendition of “Guiding Principles” for an organization’s forecasting process. The guiding principles were divided into five classifications: Foundation Principles, Design Principles, Process Principles,...

See title Copyright International Institute of Forecasters, 2012

In this Hot New research column, Goodwin cites a recent blog of Uriel Haran and Don Moore of Ben-Gurion University, who Òpresent a simple method that aims to improve the accuracy of judgmental forecasts involving probability distributions.Ó The authors call their method SPIES: Subjective...

Goodwin and Fildes comment on the issue 14 Foresight article by Orrell and McSharry, A Systems Approach to Forecasting, part of a special feature entitled Rethinking the Ways We Forecast Copyright International Institute of Forecasters, 2009

Goodwin covers the pros and cons of complexity in advanced forecasting methods and warns that recommendations based on them should be supported by strong evidence of reliability. Copyright International Institute of Forecasters, 2011

Holt-Winters (HW) is the label we frequently give to a set of procedures that form the core of the exponential-smoothing family of forecasting methods. The basic structures were provided by C.C. Holt in 1957 and his student Peter Winters in 1960. Those of you unfamiliar with exponential...

Paul Goodwin reports on recent research into the theory that combining forecasts from different methods or sources can result in greater forecast accuracy. He cites studies by George Kapetanios, as well as several other researchers, to support the conclusion that "combining forecasts is...

Goodwin defines hindsight bias and gives examples, examines its psychological basis, shows how it may interfere with the forecasting process, and suggests ways it might be at least partly overcome. Copyright International Institute of Forecasters, 2010