"One thing I know for certain--I don't want any sales managers or technical research people making new product forecasts. I've never seen such lousy forecasting as we get from these people. Sales managers either love a new item so much they think it will outsell everyone, or they think it is a dud and under forecast equally badly. Absolutely no objectivity in them. And the technical people, well, they become so enamored with their inventions that they lose all objectivity too. What I like is forecasting done by independent people--project managers or new products managers in separate departments. Have you run into any good ways of keeping sales managers and technical researchers out of forecasting? You agree that they should be excluded, don't you?"