Forecasting and Management of Technology, Second Edition

9.3 A Comprehensive Approach to Impact Assessment

Porter, Rossini, et al. (1980, pp. 54–55) proposed a comprehensive 10-step approach to impact assessment. The focus of this approach is on freestanding impact assessments, but it applies equally well to assessments within a forecast. While the work of these authors emphasized impact assessments of technologies, the approach can be extended to anything that may have societal impacts, including policies. The steps are listed in Table 9.1.

Table 9.1 Ten Steps of Impact Assessment

1.	Problem definition
2.	Societal context description
3.	Societal context forecast
4.	Technology description
5.	Technology forecast
6.	Impact identification
7.	Impact analysis
8.	Impact evaluation
9.	Policy analysis
10.	Communication of results

Several observations are in order concerning the implementation of these steps. First, they should not be considered a linear progression. Given the complexities, steps often must be redone based on knowledge gained in subsequent steps. For instance, impact evaluation may suggest mitigation efforts to alter the technology, changing its description and requiring that the study be redone.

Second, the emphases given to each of the 10 steps may vary greatly from assessment to assessment. Indeed, sometimes it may be appropriate to truncate some steps or to skip them entirely. In addition, many other study strategies have been proposed for impact assessments (Jones 1971; Coates 1976; Armstrong and Harman ...