Decision Making Techniques

 Teamwork is a necessary skill that has been taught to many of us since early childhood. Despite years of exposure to collaborative settings, group decision-making can be difficult and frustrating when the group goes unmanaged, resulting in low quality discussions and some voices not being heard. There are many methodologies that can be utilized to manage group decision-making, such as the Delphi Technique. The Delphi Technique is a method used when the participating group cannot meet in-person. Questionnaires are sent to the participants, who then submit their individual responses to a small representing group or nonparticipating coordinator. The group or coordinator will then make the final decision based on the responses collected. The Delphi Technique benefits from the anonymity of the responses and by giving all participants the opportunity to voice their opinions and proposed solutions; however, the process can take a long time to complete, and the final decision is ultimately made by a smaller group of representatives rather than the whole participating group (Jackson, 2022).

Two other decision-making techniques include the nominal group technique and brainstorming. The nominal group technique (NGT) starts with participants writing down their and submitting them anonymously. The written notes are then collected and discussed openly with the group. After the discussion, a voting process begins with participants giving each idea a score, typically on a scale of one to five with five being the better rating. For each idea, the scores are then added and compared to identify the idea with the highest overall score (iResearchNet, 2022). Brainstorming is a technique that presents participants with a problem and then allows for open discussion and for ideas to be presented freely. Brainstorming may have a coordinator to state the problem and initiate the discussion, but the active discussions tend to be unmoderated (Jackson, 2022).

Both NGT and brainstorming allow for participants to share their ideas freely, though they have different methods for doing so. NGT’s sharing method allows for participants to remain anonymous while brainstorming requires participants to personally present their ideas (Jackson, 2022). NGT’s sharing method may be considered constrictive as the participant is limited to the written format, but brainstorming’s method also has its downfalls as participants may feel pressured resulting in them either not sharing their idea or modifying it to fit their perception of the group. When comparing NGT and brainstorming, NGT is more organized than the “open-conversation” structure of brainstorming; however, this structure allows for more creative thinking and open discussions for ideas (iResearchNet, 2022).

To summarize, and give a TLDR, NGT is more structured, organized, and allows for all participants to present their ideas in an anonymous manner, but this method can be time-consuming, and it can limit creativity due to the directed discussions. Brainstorming allows for open discussions, promotes creativity, and it can be fast-paced; however, this method is not well organized, participants may not focus on the given topic, some participants may not have their voices heard, and there may be bias to certain participants or proposed ideas (Jackson, 2022).

References

iResearchNet. (2022). Group Decision-Making Techniques. Psychology. http://psychology.iresearchnet.com/papers/group-decision-making-techniques/

Jackson, S. (2022, July). 5 GROUP DECISION MAKING TECHNIQUES. Organizational Psychology Degrees. https://www.organizationalpsychologydegrees.com/lists/5-group-decision-making-techniques/