The Nominal Group Technique is a kind of group-based brainstorming that significantly enables participation from all members resulting in more comprehensive and thoughtful solutions.
How Nominal Group Technique Works
- The moderator states the topic for brainstorming and ensures all participants are clear on the topic.
- All participants are given a set period of time (5-10 mins) to write their thoughts on paper.
- When finished, each idea is presented.
- Continue for set period of time or until impractical
- Moderator transcribes ideas to a shared visual board.
- Duplicate ideas are skipped or merged.
- Each idea is discussed by the group.
- No idea may be eliminated without consensus.
- Some ideas are merged.
- New ideas may emerge and the moderator should capture them as well.
- Use Multivoting to select the path forward.
When to Use Nominal Group Technique
- When you have shy team members.
- When the team tends to defer to a single person or group of people.
- When a team member hasn’t felt like their voice is being heard.
- When teams think better in silence.
- When there are controversial items to discuss.
Nominal Group Technique Videos
Six Sigma Black Belt Exam Nominal Group Technique Questions
Question: Which of the following tools should be used when a team is generating and prioritizing a list of options that include highly controversial issues?
(A) Brainstorming
(B) Affinity diagrams
(C) Nominal group technique
(D) 5 whys
Answer: (C) Nominal Group Technique. Brainstorming is a good answer, but incomplete. Affinity diagrams are useful for organizing the output. While 5 whys are a great way of getting to a root cause of an issue.
Comments (2)
is there difference between feasibility study and SWOT analysis or both of them are same?
Good question. They are close. A general feasibility study tends to assess the characteristics of an initiative. You could break it into sections; i.e. technical, economic, operational, scheduling, etc. A SWOT analysis looks at strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. I see the SWOT as more of a competitive analysis while a general feasibility study looks at macro trends. And I would think a SWOT would be a great addition to a general feasibility study.