Len Tashman		Holly Stanton

Trends: The Forecasting Summit is going strong, with ten conferences presented since its inception in 2002. Tell us how the event got started.

Holly: The Summit grew out of the need among practitioners for a forecasting conference that would help them address the challenges they regularly face at a time when high quality, practical education for forecasters was sorely lacking. When we designed the conference, we wanted to make sure that the program was flexible enough to provide relevant, accessible information for practitioners with a wide range of experience and skill sets working in a variety of industries.

To achieve this, we created three different "tracks" while also allowing attendees to pick and choose among the sessions being offered so that they can tailor the conference to meet their own needs. The first is the Forecasting Seminar, taught by Len, which covers the basics and is particularly valuable to those who are new to the field. The second—the Tutorials & Perspectives track—is truly unique to the Summit. In these sessions, members of the International Institute of Forecasters (IIF) and other experts provide updates on research, methodologies and best practices so that the attendees can stay up-to-date on the cutting edge of what’s out there. Finally, in the Practitioner Presentations, we hear about what works and what doesn’t from people in the real world who have "been there, done that" and want to share their experiences.

It was also a goal to create an event where both practitioners and researchers could get together and share ideas, so the agenda is structured to facilitate networking and we always have at least one really fun social event where everyone can get to know each other and have the chance to relax a bit.

We obviously struck a chord with the Summit! We when started out, the conference was held on an annual basis, and in response to requests from the forecasting community, we began presenting two conferences a year in 2005.

Trends: Many conferences are either academically oriented or focused on practitioners. It seems that the Summit tries to bring these two groups together. How does that work?

Len: It works very well! Academics thrive on learning what practitioners consider to be the important issues in forecasting. Without the interaction afforded by the Summit, it is too easy to lose sight of the critical issues. The academics understand that what they should be working on in the future is a function of what the important, real-world forecasting problems are.

Practitioners get much more than just the "war stories" of how companies solved particular problems. They learn what the experts have developed as forecasting solutions and they hear better ways to approach forecasting processes and systems. For example, the experts have written a lot recently recommending that when a company is implementing a new forecasting process, the decision to purchase new software should be made rather late in the process rather than as an initial or early step, which is what often happens.

Holly: I would also add that the IIF members who give presentations in the Tutorials & Perspectives track are generally passionate about forecasting. When the practitioners meet these impressive folks who have dedicated their entire careers to the field, they get jazzed about the emphasis on research in forecasting that they may not have even known existed! These speakers make themselves very accessible to the attendees throughout the entire conference, and it’s been great to witness the many connections being made which continue long after the Summit is over.

Trends: Len, you’re currently on the board of directors for the IIF, which is an organization that some view as an academic group, publishing the scholarly International Journal of Forecasting and sponsoring the academically-oriented annual International Symposium on Forecasting conference. When you became involved with the Summit, how did you see the conference dovetailing with other IIF initiatives?

Len: The IIF has evolved over its 28 years of existence, and is now an organization that has a 50/50 orientation between academic pursuits and real-world forecasting problems. While it has always published the International Journal of Forecasting, the IIF has put a lot of effort into its new practitioner journal, Foresight, which is publishing insightful, readable, objective articles for practitioners. Sponsoring the Summit conference was another initiative in the IIF’s outreach to forecasting practitioners. You can’t do relevant research or consulting on forecasting without knowing what’s going on in the business world, and without interacting with practitioners. The Summit provides a wonderful venue to nurture these relationships, and all involved benefit.

Trends: What is the profile of the typical attendee who comes to the Summit?

Holly: The Summit attracts practitioners—not only from corporations across a wide range of industries, but from government and non-profits too—as well some academics. In terms of attendees’ forecasting experience, there is also a broad cross section. We get a fair number of folks who are new to forecasting, who come to get their feet wet and learn what the field is all about; they usually participate in Len’s track. On the other end of the spectrum, we also see very experienced forecasters who are running large forecast organizations who want to have the connection to the research community that Len discussed, find out about the "latest and greatest" in forecasting and network with other colleagues.

We also find that some larger organizations will send a small group of forecasters so that there is a critical mass when these colleagues return which allows them to collectively implement new approaches. A number of companies regularly send new employees in forecasting as a way of familiarizing them with the field. There are also a number of people who return to the conference on a regular basis—typically every 12 or 18 months—to get a refresher, find out the latest developments and network with other forecasters.

Trends: Some might say that forecasting is somewhat dry and "geeky." What is the atmosphere like at these conferences? Is it all dark rooms and PowerPoint presentations?

Len: The Summit is quite the opposite of dry and "geeky." Perhaps that may better characterize a statistics conference! Forecasting, in contrast, is very interdisciplinary. One of the things that makes it lively is that brings in people from many different fields—finance, supply chain, sales & marketing, demand planning, economics and even some classical statisticians. To get accurate forecasts in a real business environment, you can’t rely much on statistical laws and theorems and rigorously proved principles—you have problems to solve which require creative and innovative thinking.

In forecasting, you’re often marching off into unexplained territory which makes it exciting and adventurous. The sessions at the Summit are not typical classroom presentations. No professor turns his back to the audience to write equations. Rather, the sessions deal with the "here and now" of forecasting and address the challenges you face, including implementation of forecasting processes and the organizational politics of forecasting. This is hardly cut and dried!

Holly: All of the sessions are structured to be as interactive as possible with either Q&A at the end or, in many cases, throughout the presentation. There are some sessions which are specifically designed to encourage discussion, most notably, the Panel of Experts—one of our most popular sessions which is quite unique. We assemble a group of practitioners, researchers and consultants who respond to questions posed by the audience. This is always a lively session and one in which you hear differences of opinion on how to approach various problems. The optional pre-conference workshops—daylong sessions focused on a specific topic—are extremely interactive and often feature hands-on exercises.

Trends: How do you put together the agenda for the conference and determine what the "hot topics" of interest are?

Len: There are timeless forecasting issues that we cover in the Tutorials & Perspectives track. We recruit speakers who are doing valuable work in these areas and we ask them to present their most important findings. One of these topics is how to combine statistical and judgmental forecasts and reach consensus within the organization; another is the "do’s and don’ts" of Sales and Operations Planning.

In the T&P track we mix these topics with tutorials on basic and advanced methods of forecasting. These sessions explain what the methods are and help to dispel any mystery that surrounds them, letting the practitioners know that they are available if the need arises. Topics we have covered to date include: forecast-accuracy measurement; intermittent data; neural networks; regression modeling; and calculation of prediction intervals.

Holly: On the practitioner side, there are two general formats for the presentations. The first is the "case study" where a company talks about their approach to forecasting, their successes and failures, the lessons learned, and the political and organizational issues they faced in establishing a forecasting process. The second is the discussion of a specific forecasting topic that the organization has faced and how they dealt with it. These can be either perennial topics or hot topics—for instance, new product forecasting, measuring forecast accuracy and quantifying the value of forecast improvement are topics that often are discussed in the Practitioner Presentations.

We listen very carefully to what past attendees have to say about the agenda and take their feedback about what topics to include in upcoming events quite seriously. Based on their input, Len and I recruit speakers that "fit the bill" and whose expertise and experience will provide the greatest value to our attendees.

Trends: The next conference is being held in Boston in September. Is there anything unusual on tap for this event?

Holly: One of the interesting things about the September conference is that we will have two keynote addresses on two very hot topics. Nigel Gault of Global Insight will kick off the conference with an outlook of what lies ahead for the US economy, which is at the top of everyone’s minds at the moment. On the second day, Dr. Allan Lichtman of American University will present "The Keys to the White House," a historically-based model that has forecast the winners of every presidential election from 1984 to 2004. In his address he will reveal which party the Keys predict will be victorious in the 2008 election.

The main social event will be a dinner cruise on the Boston harbor—if we get an evening as beautiful as the one we had last year, I’ll be very pleased!

About Len and Holly
Len Tashman is Director of the Institute for Forecasting Education, and Editor-in-Chief of Foresight: The International Journal of Applied Forecasting. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the International Institute of Forecasting (IIF). Len received his Ph.D. in Economics from Brown University and is a professor emeritus at the University of Vermont (UVM), where he was voted the MBA Association’s Professor of the Year award on four different occasions.

Holly L. Stanton has served as the Marketing Director for the Forecasting Summit since 2003, and is responsible for developing the conference program in cooperation with International Institute of Forecasters (IIF). She has more than 25 years of experience in developing marketing strategies and implementing programs for a wide range of organizations, and has been dedicated to the business forecasting community for the past six years. Holly holds a B.A. in Economics and Mathematics from Wellesley College and received a S.M. in Management from the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Business Forecast Systems in cooperation with the International Institute of Forecasters