Forecasting  

This course is an introduction to forecasting, scenario planning, making projections, and creating future-oriented budgets. The field of future-casting as some call it, is not a new domain, but its reach is now greatly expanded due to machine learning and massive computer processing capability that allows people to analyze carefully huge amounts of data in seconds. Forecasting is now a huge source of comparative advantage and comparative disadvantage. While forecasting is viewed as primarily quantitative, scenario planning is viewed as primarily qualitative. However, any systematic look into the future has to include both quantitative elements as well as qualitative assessments. This course will describe some of the inherent limitations to forecasting, scenario planning, making projections, making predictions, trends analysis, and the methods underpinning each of these disciplines. It also provides insights on the impact of Covid on making reasonably reliable forecasts.