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Nominal Group
Technique (NGT)
The
Nominal Group Technique (NGT),
or
multi-voting technique,
is a methodology for achieving team
consensus
quickly
when the team is ranking several options or alternatives or selecting
the best choice among them. The method basically consists of
having each
team member come up with his or her personal ranking of the options
or choices, and collation of everyone's rankings into the team
consensus.
The nominal
group technique is good for: 1) ensuring
equal
participation
of each member of the team when the team is making a choice among
or ranking several options or alternatives; 2) building everyone's
commitment
to whatever choice or ranking the team makes because everyone was given a fair
chance to participate; 3) eliminating peer pressure in the team's
selection/ranking process; 4) preventing dominant members from controlling the
quiet ones; and 5) making the team's
consensus
(or lack of it) visible, allowing the major points of disagreements to
be discussed and settled objectively.
To
apply
the nominal group technique, the following
steps
are usually
followed:
1) define the
central theme
for which the nominal group technique is being used; this is usually a
problem statement or a question asking for the cause of the problem
being addressed; example:
"Why is our
Failure Analysis cycle time so high?"
2) through a
brainstorming session,
generate
the list of
options
or
alternatives (e.g., issues, problems, solutions, etc.) pertaining to
this central theme, which will be ranked by the team in order of
importance; write the options as statements on a flipchart or board;
3)
clarify
the meanings of statements that are not clear and eliminate redundancies;
4) finalize
the list of options and rewrite the final list on the flipchart,
identifying each option with a letter; write the central theme above
this final list, in question form if appropriate; for the example of
central theme given above, a possible list of options answering the
question would be the one shown in Table 1;
Table 1.
List of Options for the Example Theme
|
Why is
our Failure Analysis cycle time so high? |
|
A |
There
are new, unfamiliar failure mechanisms seen in customer
returns. |
|
B |
The FA
engineers still lack training to complete FA's quickly. |
|
C |
The FA
lab does not have enough equipment and accessories. |
|
D |
There
are too many signatories in the FA report approval system. |
|
E |
The FA
system is not efficient with so many non-value-added requirements. |
|
F |
There
are not enough FA engineers to handle the incoming work load. |
<Continue to Page 2>
See Also:
Ishikawa Diagram;
Matrix Diagram
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