Group Decision Making Techniques:

Group Decision Making Techniques:

Interacting Group:

• Typical groups, in which members interact with each other face to face.
• Rely on both verbal and non-verbal interaction to communicate with each other.
• Pressure on individual members towards conformity of opinion.

Brainstorming:

• An idea generation process that specifically encourages any and all alternatives, while withholding any criticism of those alternatives.
• No criticism allowed. Every alternate is discussed.

Nominal Group Technique:

• Restricts discussion or interpersonal communication during the decision-making process, hence, the term nominal.
• Group members are physically present, as in a traditional committee meeting, but members operate independently. Specifically, a problem is presented and then the following steps take place:
• Members meet as a group, but before any discussion takes place, each member independently writes down his or her ideas on the problem.
• After this silent period, each member presents one idea to the group. Each member takes his or her turn, presenting a single idea until all ideas have been presented and recorded. No discussion takes place until all ideas have been recorded.
• The group now discusses the ideas for clarity and evaluates them.
• Each group member silently and independently rank the ideas. The idea with the height aggregate ranking determines the final discussion.

Advantage:

Nominal group does not restrict independent thinking, as does the interacting group.

(Ref: Organization Behavior- S.P.Robbins)