I find it impossible to form a preference for a policy to improve the path of economic performance without forming some opinion about what the performance would be absent any policy action. So I suppose you could say that I formulate an implicit economic forecast for every meeting.
But four times a year, I submit an explicit forecast to be used along with the forecasts of other participants in the Summary of Economic Projections (SEP) that is later published with the minutes for that meeting. Second question: given the economic outlook, what is the appropriate policy response?