Forecasting for Decision Making

Course aim

To impart knowledge, skills, and methods that can be used to commission and conduct forecasting projects that produce useful forecasts for diverse management decisions, and to review forecasting methods used by others to determine whether or not their forecasts are valid. Forecasts can be of decisions, outcomes, quantities, and time series for forecasting problems including, but not limited to, those involved with demand, store location, hiring, population numbers, conflict situations, and governance and regulation.

Course content

1. Introduction: Forecasting’s domain, role of unaided judgment, problem structuring and method selection
2. Meetings and markets: Nominal groups, estimate-talk-estimate, and prediction markets
3. Surveys: Intentions and expectations, conjoint analysis, judgmental bootstrapping, and Delphi
4. Analogs: Structured and quantitative analogies
5. Experiments: Experimentation, conjoint analysis, and simulated interactions
6. Extrapolation: Naïve models, exponential smoothing, damped trend
7. Causal models: Regression analysis, segmentation, and the index method
8. Combining and adjustment: Combining forecasts, forecasters, and methods, and adjusting for omitted information
9. Validation and checklists: Assessing the accuracy of forecasts from alternative methods, and Simple Forecasting and Golden Rule checklists
10. Presentation: Prediction intervals, scenarios, and persuasive reports and talks.

Textbook(s)

Nil

Prerequisite(s)

Nil

Corequisite(s)

Nil

Teaching method

Component	Duration
INTERNAL, CITY WEST (INTENSIVE)
Workshop	30 hours x N/A
EXTERNAL, CITY WEST, ONLINE
Workshop	30 hours x N/A
INTERNAL, CITY WEST
Preparatory	1 x 1 week
Workshop	3 hours x 10 weeks

Note: These components may or may not be scheduled in every study period. Please refer to the timetable for further details.

Assessment

Report, Research proposal

Fees

EFTSL*: 0.125
Commonwealth Supported program (Band 4C)
To determine the fee for this course as part of a Commonwealth Supported program, go to:
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Fee-paying program for domestic and international students
International students and students undertaking this course as part of a postgraduate fee paying program must refer to the relevant program home page to determine the cost for undertaking this course.

Non-award enrolment
Non-award tuition fees are set by the university. To determine the cost of this course, go to:
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Not all courses are available on all of the above bases, and students must check to ensure that they are permitted to enrol in a particular course.

* Equivalent Full Time Study Load. Please note: all EFTSL values are published and calculated at ten decimal places. Values are displayed to three decimal places for ease of interpretation.