[7] The general idea to develop a faster advanced form of Delphi studies by using ideas and basic concepts of Turoff, was initiated by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which awarded a grant in 2004 to develop an approach to improve "speed and efficiency of collecting judgments in tactical situations".
[2] Adam Pease, principal consultant and CEO of Articulate Software, published the findings and methodology together with Theodore Gordon in 2006.
[2] Based on the findings in this seminal paper, Heiko von der Gracht developed a second Real-time Delphi platform until 2008.
In 2011, von der Gracht and Gordon presented a joint paper at WFS Annual Summit 2011, which summarizes the lessons learned of 40 RTD studies across the two platforms.
The authors provide a methodological toolbox for designing Delphi surveys including among others sentiment analyses of the field of psychology.
Besides their own answers they will see the ongoing – hence, real-time – responses of other participants, and with regard to metric assessments the group as a whole will be visualised in terms of median, average, and interquartile range (IQR).
[13] Another core methodological innovation is the fact that experts may not only judge once or twice, depending on the number of rounds, as it has been usual in a Conventional Delphi study.
Additionally, the time frame between giving own answers and getting insights into others' responses is very short, which encourages stronger cognitive examination with the respective issue in question.
In addition, the respondent will be shown an attention indicator, a so-called "flag",[13] if his answer is within or outside the interquartile range or significantly different from the median.
This application helps to see and understand immediately the own assessment and to think about reasons for the deviation from group opinions or else a high degree of consent.
A second advantage of the round-less approach is the fact that, in order to take part in the study, participants can login and logout with their personalised account as often as they want during the time frame provided.
Here, it becomes clear that the process of answering can be synchronous or asynchronous and a worldwide expert panel can be reached, which is one of the major advantages of web-based tools.
So, in comparison to face-to-face discussions, the Real-Time Delphi approach gives room for individuality and different cognitive abilities of the participants.
[11] A further advantage is the fact that the administrator of the study can set an arbitrary time frame in which participants have to log in and take part in the questionnaire.
[2] Gordon and Pease[2] point out that a Real-Time Delphi study is applicable for a wide range of possible circumstances under which the consultation of experts is necessary.
On the one hand, the authors give the example of a "small group operating synchronously in a conference room with laptop computers connected wirelessly to the web site where the software resides, with anticipated completion of the exercise in say 20 min.".
On the other hand, it can be thought of a larger panel of experts operating asynchronously from remote locations within a longer period of time.
[15] Further illustrative examples in academic journals include cases from logistics,[16] social business,[17] professional services,[18] retail,[19] and automotive.