Decision-making in groups is not easy; for example, the group may polarize and refuse to reach consensus or it may form a group think and stick to a familiar mutually acceptable decision without considering better alternatives. Knowledge of group decision-making techniques can help managers effectively steer group decision-making processes.
Brainstorming
Brainstorming is a group creativity technique by which efforts are made to find a conclusion for a specific problem by gathering a list of ideas spontaneously contributed by its members. The term was popularized by Alex Faickney Osborn in the 1953 book Applied Imagination.
Osborn claimed that two principles contribute to “ideative efficacy,” these being :
- Defer judgment,
- Reach for quantity.
Following these two principals were his four general rules of brainstorming, established with intention to :
- reduce social inhibitions among group members.
- stimulate idea generation.
- increase overall creativity of the group.
Brainstorming combines a relaxed, informal approach to problem solving with lateral thinking. It encourages people to come up with thoughts and ideas that can, at first, seem a bit crazy. Some of these ideas can be crafted into original, creative solutions to a problem, while others can spark even more ideas. This helps to get people unstuck by “jolting” them out of their normal ways of thinking.
Careful attention should be paid to everyone’s nuances and information as you move through the brainstorming process. Ideas should be heard, captured, and entertained – they should not be judged or interrogated in terms of their practicality or implementation. At this stage, you just want to capture all those great ideas and get them down on paper so that you can work with them.
Therefore, during brainstorming sessions, people should avoid criticizing or rewarding ideas. You’re trying to open up possibilities and break down incorrect assumptions about the problem’s limits. Judgment and analysis at this stage stunts idea generation and limit creativity.
Brainstorming types
- Personal Brainstorming – It is just by yourself – is very useful for the start of any new project, especially if you can be prone to put things off until tomorrow. Planning a new venture, a presentation, or any new initiative, is generally much easier if you begin simply by thinking of ideas – in no particular order or structure – and jotting them down on a sheet of paper or in a notebook. Basically this is personal brainstorming, and it can follow the same process as described above for groups, except that it’s just you doing it. Sometimes it’s very difficult to begin planning something new – because you don’t know where and how to start. Brainstorming is a great way to begin. The method also generates lots of possibilities which you might otherwise miss by getting into detailed structured planning too early.
- Group Brainstorming – Here, you can take advantage of the full experience and creativity of all team members. When one member gets stuck with an idea, another member’s creativity and experience can take the idea to the next stage. You can develop ideas in greater depth with group brainstorming than you can with individual brainstorming. Another advantage of group brainstorming is that it helps everyone feel that they’ve contributed to the solution, and it reminds people that others have creative ideas to offer. It’s also fun, so it can be great for team building! Where possible, participants should come from a wide range of disciplines. This cross-section of experience can make the session more creative. However, don’t make the group too big: as with other types of teamwork, groups of five to seven people are usually most effective.
Brainstorming process
- Define and agree the objective.
- Brainstorm ideas and suggestions having agreed a time limit.
- Categorise/condense/combine/refine.
- Assess/analyse effects or results.
- Prioritise options/rank list as appropriate.
- Agree action and timescale.
- Control and monitor follow-up.
Consider the factors like practicality of the idea, people involved, possible obstacles and cost. The ideas can then be ranked, based on factors such as possible impact, feasibility and cost.
From there you can order the ideas according to their ranking, scrapping the ones that don’t have a lot of merit and, as a consensual agreement, zero in on the most important ones. In this way, you can focus on the ideas that would make the most financial sense and then assess those suggestions based on the feasibility and the impact that you could get from implementing them fully. After this has been done, you can prepare a report to your sponsors, your managers, or whomever it is that needs to approve the work that you’re going to do, before moving on to implementation.
Nominal Group Technique
The Nominal Group Technique is a form of brainstorming, wherein a structured meeting is held among the group members where they are required to find solutions to the problem identified for the discussion.
It is a systematic and an organized group meeting held among the members to facilitate decision making by properly identifying the problems and generating the solutions thereof. The nominal group technique helps in preventing the discussion being dominated by a single person and hence, allow the silent members, who are quite shy, to speak out their ideas in the group.
The objective of nominal group technique is to resolve the opinion conflicts among the group members by enabling each individual to pen down his/her thoughts about the problem and later discuss it with the entire group to reach the consensus solution.
When to Use Nominal Group Technique
- When some group members are much more vocal than others.
- When some group members think better in silence.
- When there is concern about some members not participating.
- When the group does not easily generate quantities of ideas.
- When all or some group members are new to the team.
- When the issue is controversial or there is heated conflict.
Nominal Group Technique Procedure
Materials needed: paper and pen or pencil for each individual, flipchart, marking pens, tape.
- State the subject of the brainstorming. Clarify the statement as needed until everyone understands it.
- Each team member silently thinks of and writes down as many ideas as possible in a set period of time (5 to 10 minutes).
- Each member in turn states aloud one idea. Facilitator records it on the flipchart.
- No discussion is allowed, not even questions for clarification.
- Ideas given do not need to be from the team member’s written list. Indeed, as time goes on, many ideas will not be.
- A member may “pass” his or her turn, and may then add an idea on a subsequent turn.
- Continue around the group until all members pass or for an agreed-upon length of time.
- Discuss each idea in turn. Wording may be changed only when the idea’s originator agrees. Ideas may be stricken from the list only by unanimous agreement. Discussion may clarify meaning, explain logic or analysis, raise and answer questions, or state agreement or disagreement.
- Prioritize the ideas using multivoting or list reduction.
Some of the obvious advantages are that voting is anonymous, there are opportunities for equal participation of group members and distractions (communication “noise”) inherent in other group methods are minimized. As to disadvantages, opinions may not converge in the voting process, cross-fertilization, of ideas may be constrained, and the process may appear to be too mechanical.
Multivoting
Multivoting is a technique for narrowing a wide range of ideas or choices down to the few most appropriate, feasible, and important. This technique saves time while still considering every idea that has been generated.
Multivoting is a method of conducting a vote with a team to select the most important or popular items from a list with limited discussion and difficulty. Use Multivoting to narrow down a list to a few high priority items. A Multivoting session requires a group of participants and a topic for discussion that will generate a list of ideas, issues, or problems. Its primary goal is to reduce the range of options, thereby preventing “information overload”.
Also known as N/3 voting, in Multi-Voting, N refers to the total number of ideas. Every team member is then given N/3 votes and instructed to vote on the most important ideas; the team member can only assign one vote per idea. E.g., if there are 30 ideas, each team member gets 30/3 or 10 votes each. Since there are less votes then there are ideas, the less important ideas will naturally be “weeded out”, thereby reducing the number of ideas the team must contend with.
Multivoting Procedure
Materials needed: flipchart or whiteboard, marking pens, 5 to 10 slips of paper for each individual, pen or pencil for each individual.
- Display the list of options. Combine duplicate items. Affinity diagrams can be useful to organize large numbers of ideas and eliminate duplication and overlap. List reduction may also be useful.
- Number (or letter) all items.
- Decide how many items must be on the final reduced list. Decide also how many choices each member will vote for. Usually, five choices are allowed. The longer the original list, the more votes will be allowed, up to 10.
- Working individually, each member selects the five items (or whatever number of choices is allowed) he or she thinks most important. Then each member ranks the choices in order of priority, with the first choice ranking highest. For example, if each member has five votes, the top choice would be ranked five, the next choice four, and so on. Each choice is written on a separate paper, with the ranking underlined in the lower right corner.
- Tally votes. Collect the papers, shuffle them, then record on a flipchart or whiteboard. The easiest way to record votes is for the scribe to write all the individual rankings next to each choice. For each item, the rankings are totaled next to the individual rankings.
- If a decision is clear, stop here. Otherwise, continue with a brief discussion of the vote. The purpose of the discussion is to look at dramatic voting differences, such as an item that received both 5 and 1 ratings, and avoid errors from incorrect information or understandings about the item. The discussion should not result in pressure on anyone to change their vote.
- Repeat the voting process in steps 4 and 5. If greater decision-making accuracy is required, this voting may be done by weighting the relative importance of each choice on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being most important.
Multivoting Example
A team had to develop a list of key customers to interview. First, team members brainstormed a list of possible names. Since they wanted representation of customers in three different departments, they divided the list into three groups. Within each group, they used multivoting to identify four first-choice interviewees. This example shows the multivoting for one department.
Fifteen of the brainstormed names were in that department. Each team member was allowed five votes, giving five points to the top choice, four to the second choice, and so on down to one point for the fifth choice. The votes and tally are shown in Figure 1. (The names are fictitious, and any resemblance to real individuals is strictly coincidental.) Although several of the choices emerge as agreed favorites, significant differences are indicated by the number of choices that have both high and low rankings. The team will discuss the options to ensure that everyone has the same information, and then vote again.
Criteria Matrix
Criteria Matrix is a technique designed to prioritize a group of potential alternatives under consideration. This is accomplished by identifying and weighing agreed-upon criteria against each of those alternatives. Establishing criteria forces a group to articulate and examine their values, rationales, and assumptions before making their decision.
Criteria are standards from which one makes judgments or decisions, and their identification become the basis for evaluation. For example, if your work group wants to buy a specific piece of equipment and you have a maximum of $20,000 to spend, this amount becomes a criterion. Any equipment over that amount does not meet your criterion and therefore you would not likely choose it. Once all the criteria for the equipment you want to purchase are identified and agreed upon (cost, specifications, quality, warranties, maintenance schedules, etc.) your group can investigate the alternatives more objectively.
It is much easier to reach consensus when making a decision if the criteria are identified and agreed upon beforehand. People are much more willing to give up their favorite choices when they see that these favorites don’t meet the necessary criteria. If there is no agreement on the criteria up front, it is less likely that there will be agreement on the best alternative when it comes time to make the decision.
When to Use Criteria Matrix
- When a decision has many components or criteria which must be factored
- When a potential decision is going around in circles without resolve
- When several opinions and perspectives must be considered
- When it is difficult to choose between many choices or alternatives to make a decision
How to Use Criteria Matrix
Before the Meeting – Prepare a chart or overhead for the Criteria Matrix you plan to use in your meeting. Refer to the three examples below for templates.
During the Meeting
- Brainstorm and agree all criteria that must be satisfied to make the best decision for the problem or situation under consideration. Include criteria from all stakeholders, in addition to any emotionally based and political criteria.
- Brainstorm all options to a specific problem or situation. Create a short list of serious contenders.
- Introduce the Criteria Matrix you have selected to use for this meeting. Variation functions may be when all criteria have basically the same weight and the decision is not terribly complex. Variation may also be when clear veto criteria exist or when no veto criteria exist, the decision is quite complex, and criteria differ widely in importance.
- Rate your short list of choices against your criteria
- Using the completed Criteria Matrix, analyze the results as a group. Use this as data for helping the group make the final decision.
