The Story of Technology: How We Got Here and What the Future Holds

by Daniel M. Gerstein

to the use of the S-curve in determining where the technology falls within its life cycle. Another model uses chaos theory and artificial neural networks to look for repeatable patterns in previous technology development that can suggest the future for the technology being evaluated. The use of influence diagrams provides yet another model that has been identified for technology forecasting; such techniques allow one to determine the logical cause-and-effect relationships between related activities and the probabilities of those outcomes. Tools such as the critical path method and PERT (Program Evaluation Review Technique) provide specialized tools for considering such relationships and have proven useful in project management, of which technology development can be considered a subset.