Michael Gilliland is a longtime business forecasting practitioner and formerly a Product Marketing Manager for SAS Forecasting. He is on the Board of Directors of the International Institute of Forecasters, and is Associate Editor of their practitioner journal Foresight: The International Journal of Applied Forecasting. Mike is author of The Business Forecasting Deal (Wiley, 2010) and former editor of the free e-book Forecasting with SAS: Special Collection (SAS Press, 2020). He is principal editor of Business Forecasting: Practical Problems and Solutions (Wiley, 2015) and Business Forecasting: The Emerging Role of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (Wiley, 2021). In 2017 Mike received the Institute of Business Forecasting's Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2021 his paper "FVA: A Reality Check on Forecasting Practices" was inducted into the Foresight Hall of Fame. Mike initiated The Business Forecasting Deal blog in 2009 to help expose the seamy underbelly of forecasting practice, and to provide practical solutions to its most vexing problems.
Note: The following concludes an eight-part serialization of selected content from Steve Morlidge's The Little (Illustrated) Book of Operational Forecasting. Good forecasts don’t always ‘look right’ Many forecasters believe that they can tell how good a forecast is by ‘eyeballing’ it. Good forecasts just ‘look right’ or so they would
Note: Following is an eight-part serialization of selected content from Steve Morlidge's The Little (Illustrated) Book of Operational Forecasting. The measurement challenge So here is the forecasters dilemma: There will always have forecast error. The challenge is to work out the cause of the error and to take the appropriate
We'll take a short break from the Steve Morlidge book serialization, to announce that SAS Research & Development has again provided $10,000 in funding for the SAS/IIF grant program. Both academics and industry practitioners are encouraged to apply and conduct original research for improving the practice of forecasting. SAS/IIF Grants
Note: Following is an eight-part serialization of selected content from Steve Morlidge's The Little (Illustrated) Book of Operational Forecasting. The forecasting challenge It is not possible to forecast any future outcomes precisely. Only the signal is potentially forecastable – noise is unforecastable in principle. And all forecasts assume that the
Note: Following is an eight-part serialization of selected content from Steve Morlidge's The Little (Illustrated) Book of Operational Forecasting. Data Series are different – and it matters to forecasters The nature of demand that is to be forecast, as represented by patterns in the historic data series, that is to
Note: Following is an eight-part serialization of selected content from Steve Morlidge's The Little (Illustrated) Book of Operational Forecasting. Forecasting is not compulsory Operational forecasting is important but it is not mandatory. operational forecasts are used to make sure that a business can respond effectively to customer demand for its
Note: Following is an eight-part serialization of selected content from Steve Morlidge's The Little (Illustrated) Book of Operational Forecasting. The quality of forecasts matters…a lot It is difficult to precisely estimate the business impact of forecast quality partly because it impacts so many variables in ways that are not easy
Note: Following is an eight-part serialization of selected content from Steve Morlidge's The Little (Illustrated) Book of Operational Forecasting. Different kinds of forecasts This book is focused on operational forecasting – the stuff you do to determine what you need to buy, produce, hold in stock or otherwise give your customers
Note: Following is an eight-part serialization of selected content from Steve Morlidge's The Little (Illustrated) Book of Operational Forecasting. What IS a forecast? First of all, we need to be absolutely clear what a forecast is – and what it isn’t. A forecast is a best estimate of future
The Little (Illustrated) Book of Operational Forecasting Steve Morlidge's latest work, The Little (Illustrated) Book of Operational Forecasting, is a unique contribution to the field. It is a guide for short term operational forecasting, delivered in a pocket-sized format, through 79 brief (two page) illustrated lessons. As I stated in my
