We teach your team how forecasting actually works — not just which buttons to press. OpenForecast training is built on more than a decade of teaching forecasting and statistics at Lancaster University and delivering courses to practitioners across industries. The premise is simple: software changes, vendors change, but a planner who understands the principles can make any tool work — and can tell when it doesn’t.
How we teach
Fundamentals first
Every course explains why the methods work, what their parameters mean, and when each one is appropriate — so your team learns to model real problems rather than execute recipes. That understanding is what remains after the course ends.
In your tools: Excel, R, or Python
All our courses can be delivered with examples and workshops in MS Excel, R, or Python — whichever your team actually uses. The principles are identical; the practice happens where your daily work does.
Real data, real problems
Examples come from real demand data — including the awkward kind: promotions, short histories, and the intermittent demand of spare parts and slow movers that most courses quietly skip.
Beyond the forecast
A forecast is only useful when it changes a decision. Our courses connect forecasting to what follows: honest accuracy evaluation, uncertainty and prediction intervals, and the translation into safety stock and inventory decisions.
Our courses
Demand Forecasting Principles — the core course: forecasting fundamentals, time series components, exponential smoothing and ETS, regression and promotional modelling, honest forecast evaluation, and how forecasts inform decisions. For demand planners, analysts, and anyone whose numbers feed a plan.
Advanced Demand Forecasting — for teams ready to go further: intermittent demand methods, ARIMA, models with explanatory variables, multiple seasonalities, forecast combination, and hierarchical forecasting.
Introduction to Statistics — the foundations beneath it all: distributions, estimation, hypothesis testing, and regression, explained for analysts rather than mathematicians.
Introduction to Marketing Analytics — making sense of marketing data: analysing the effects of promotions, pricing, and campaigns, and building evidence for marketing decisions.
Detailed pages for each course, with content and formats, are coming shortly — in the meantime, write to us for a syllabus.
What attendees say
The tutors are true experts in statistical forecasting models. Their insights on the simplest aspects of the field were valuable, even for a seasoned practitioner like myself. This course gave me a better understanding of forecasting methods and best practices. This course motivates me to learn forecasting more!
I enjoyed quizzes and workshops. Every question that we asked was answered comprehensively. Appreciated!
Formats
Bespoke, for your team. Delivered at your premises or online, with content selected to match your needs, your data, and your software. This is the format we recommend for planning teams: the examples are your problems, and the discussion is about your process.
Open courses. Scheduled online courses that individuals can join — announced on our events page when dates are set.
Who teaches
Courses are developed and taught by the people behind this site: forecasting researchers who write the books, build the open-source packages, and consult on real demand planning problems. What we teach is what we use.
Thinking about training for your team?
Tell us about your team, your tools, and what you want them to be able to do — we will suggest a course and format to match.