Explain how businesses should apply nominal group technique in the work place

Answer 1

The Nominal Group Technique (NGT) is a structured method that involves generating, evaluating, and prioritizing ideas or solutions in a group setting. It is particularly useful in the workplace for decision-making processes, problem-solving, or brainstorming sessions. Here is how businesses can apply the nominal group technique:

1. Define the objective: Clearly define the objective or problem that needs to be addressed. This helps to ensure that everyone understands the topic and stays focused during the process.

2. Form a diverse group: Create a group of individuals with diverse backgrounds, expertise, and perspectives. This diversity allows for a wider range of ideas and prevents groupthink.

3. Individual idea generation: Give participants time to generate their ideas individually. This can be done by asking each person to write down their ideas or solutions related to the objective. This step ensures that individuals can freely express their thoughts without any influence from others.

4. Share ideas: In a round-robin manner, ask each participant to share one idea at a time. This step involves going around the table and allowing each person to voice their ideas while others actively listen. This process continues until all ideas are shared, and each idea is recorded on a visible medium like a flip-chart or whiteboard.

5. Clarification and discussion: After all the ideas are shared, the group engages in a discussion to clarify and understand each idea better. Participants can ask questions, seek explanations, or provide additional insights related to each idea. This step promotes understanding and reduces ambiguity regarding the shared ideas.

6. Voting and prioritization: Each participant is given a designated number of votes (e.g., five dots or stickers). They can distribute their votes among the ideas that they perceive as most valuable or important. This step helps to prioritize the ideas by considering the collective preferences of the group.

7. Group discussion: Initiate a group discussion to understand the rationale behind individuals' choices during the voting process. Participants can express their opinions, viewpoints, and concerns related to the ideas that received more votes. This allows for further exploration of different perspectives and helps in selecting the most appropriate ideas.

8. Finalize the results: Based on the collective input, the group can finalize the list of ideas or solutions that are deemed most valuable or important. The selected ideas can be further refined or incorporated into an action plan for implementation.

Overall, applying the nominal group technique in the workplace enables businesses to harness the collective intelligence and creativity of their employees. It ensures active participation, encourages diverse thinking, maintains fairness, and results in more informed and inclusive decision-making processes.