Nominal Group Concept

Nominal Group is a group decision taking technique whose fundamental characteristic is the fact that the elements of the group, despite being front to front in meeting, present their ideas in a systematic way and totally independent.

After the identification and presentation of the problem by the group leader, the sequence of the decision making process is the following:

1. Each group element, without that any discussion have begun, writes, independently from others, his ideas about the problem;

2. After a period of silence, follows the systematic presentation of his idea by each element of the group, which is placed on a board without any kind of discussion;

3. It’s started the discussion of the ideas presented and placed on the board in order to be clarified and evaluated;

4. After being clarified and evaluated, each group element, silently and independently, proceed to their ordering, giving them a classification;

5. Is taken the final decision, which is determined for the idea that gathered the most global points, resulting from the sum of the points given individually by each group element.

 

 

Translated from Portuguese by Susana Saraiva, Portuguese-English and English-Portuguese translation specialist. Contact: spams@sapo.pt.