TECHNIQUES FOR IMPROVING GROUP DECISION MAKING

In large and complex organizations most of the basic and strategic decisions are made bu group of managers rather than individuals. It seems safe to say that in many instances group decision making in preferable than individual decision making. Decisions relating to the determination of organization goals, formulation of plans, strategies, and policies fall under this category. Group decision making has become more wide prevalent during the past few decades because organizational problems have become so complex which requires a variety of specialized and abilities that no one person can handle effectively. Following are some recent techniques for improving decision making:

(1) Brainstorming

In many situations, groups are expected to produce creative or imaginative solutions to organizational problems. In such instances brainstorming has often been found to enhance the creative output of the group. Brainstorming is a useful technique for generating ideas about possible causes of problems, and about potential solutions to problems, once they have been identified. The objectives of brainstorming is to generate lots of ideas on a particular subject.

(2) Delphi Technique

The Delphi technique is a systematic means to obtain consensus from a group or panel of experts. The panel does not meet as a committee to discuss, or debate. In this technique participants are asked to give their ideas, suggestions, and views on the decisional problem. All responses are transcribed into a single document. Then the results are sent back to the panel members and again their reactions to others views, ideas, and suggestions are collected. The names of the participants are kept anonymous. It helps to evoke each participants unbiased opinion by preventing the influences of group dynamics. A panel coordinator contacts each participant usually by a mail questionnaire.

(3) The Nominal Group Technique(NGT)

A manager who must take a decision about an important issue sometimes needs to know what alternatives are available and how people would react to them.A technique called the nominal group technique has been developed to fit this situation.Basically, NGT is structured group meeting that proceeds as follows: a group of individuals(7 to 10) sit round a table but do not speak to one another. The problem is presented to them, and they write their reactions, ideas, suggestions, and views on a sheet of paper. After this process is over, structured sharing of ideas takes place. Each person around the table presents his ideas. A person designated as recorder writes the ideas of various members on a blackboard. At the end of it, there is a list of ideas open for discussion.The next stage involves independent voting in which each participant selects priorities by ranking or voting. The final group decision is the pooled outcome of the individual vote.