SO FTWARE S U R VE Y
The future of
forecasting
Making predictions from hard and fast data.
BY JACK YURKIEWICZ
ere is an easy forecast to
make: Forecasting will be
part of our information flow
for the foreseeable future.
Forecasting is also a key topic in my
“Decision Modeling for Management”
course. In preparing the midterm exam
for this past spring term, I wanted the students to analyze the enrollment figures for
the Affordable Care Act and make some
forecasts. The media has been talking
about these enrollment figures since the
rollout, and politicians have been making
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projections about them as well. In the
course we covered various forecasting
methodologies, including trend analysis.
Thus, my plan for a midterm problem was
to give the students the enrollment data
and have them make a forecast for the
May 1 enrollment deadline. Getting those
enrollment numbers became obstacle
number one.
Figures 1 and 2 show some typical
results of an Internet search. I found
graphs, some better, more worse (look
at the markers on the x-axis of the graph
W W W. I N F O R M S . O R G