Nominal Group Technique
Jay Ford and John Hyatt
Reduce Waiting & No-Shows  Increase Admissions & Continuation
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Reduce Waiting & No-Shows  Increase Admissions & Continuation
Nominal Group Technique
• Designed to promote group participation in the
decision making process,
• Used by small groups to
– Reach consensus on the identification of key
problems (Principle 2) or
– Develop solutions that can be tested using rapid
change cycles (Principle 5).
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Generating Solutions
• We have done a walk-through
• We have identified key process problems
• We have identified an aim to focus on…
• NOW we need SOLUTIONS – this is
where the NGT comes in
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When to use the
Nominal Group Process
•
•
•
•
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Brainstorming
Reaching consensus
Assigning priorities
Involving equitable staff participation
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Nominal Group Steps
Room
Preparation
Final voting
Silent Idea
Generation
Discussion
of
preliminary
vote
Record
ideas
Preliminary
Voting
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Discussion
of Ideas
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2. Silent Idea Generation
• Allows adequate time for thinking and reflection
through recall
• Promotes social facilitation (e.g., seeing others
hard at work)
• Avoids interruptions, undue focus on one idea,
and competition, as well as status and
conformance pressures or choosing
prematurely between ideas
• Promotes a problem-centered focus
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3. Round Robin Recording
• Promotes equal participation
• Increases problem-mindedness and the ability
to deal with a large number of ideas
• Separates the ideas from the person
• Allows for the tolerance of conflicting ideas
• Encourages hitchhiking on ideas
• Provides written records of the ideas
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4. Serial Discussion of Idea
• Avoids unduly focusing on any one idea or a
subset of ideas
• Provides an opportunity for clarification and the
elimination of any misunderstanding
• Outlines the arguments and disagreements
over ideas
• Records differences of opinion without undue
augmentation
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5. Preliminary Voting
• Rating Approach
• Ranking Approach
• “Dot” distribution
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NGT Steps 6 and 7
• Preliminary discussion
– Examine items with inconsistent voting
patterns
– Discuss ideas with “too many” or “too few”
votes
• Final Voting
– Prioritization among top ideas
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Change Team Assignment
• As a table, ask one participant to identify a
key issue that they are dealing with as the
focus of your nominal group process.
• Assign a Change Leader to facilitate
• Go through each section as a team to
generate solutions
• Vote on those solutions to identify the top
idea to test first
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