Structured Analogies for Forecasting

Abstract

People often use analogies when forecasting, but in an unstructured manner. We propose a structured judgmental procedure whereby experts list analogies, rate their similarity to the target, and match outcomes with possible target outcomes. An administrator would then derive a forecast from the information. When predicting decisions made in eight conflict situations, unaided experts' forecasts were little better than chance, at 32% accurate. In contrast, 46% of structured-analogies forecasts were accurate. Among experts who were able to think of two or more analogies and who had direct experience with their closest analogy, 60% of forecasts were accurate. Collaboration did not help.

Keywords: Availability, Case-based reasoning, Comparison, Decision, Method