TOOLS

IN DECISION MAKING
Sr. Francia C. Opiana, ACI

How can

managers pursue
the advantages of
participation and
overcome some of
the
disadvantages?

 A Numberof

techniques have been

developed to help
individuals and groups
makebetterdecisions.

Making Better Group Decisions

Making decisions within a group can often

be challenging. When things go well, they

can go very well. However, when things go
wrong, you can end up mired in conflict.
Some people may fight for recognition
and position, others may be over-critical or
disruptive, while others may sit quietly and
not contribute anything to the overall effort.
Because of this, groups can often spin out
of control and make worse decisions than
individuals working on their own.

 When this happens, it's easy to

see why some people throw their

hands up in frustration and give
up.
However, when a group works in
the right way, it really WORKS.
Groups that function effectively
together can outperform
individuals and make much better
decisions.

But how do you make your

group effective? How do

you get all the members to
contribute and inspire one
another to create great
ideas and solutions?

Individuals, organizations,
and community groups are
often faced with difficult
problems to solve and
important decisions to make.
For a group to be successful,
it must find methods to
creatively solve problems
and focus on reaching goals
and achieving results.

 The following group process

techniques can be used to identify

and solve problems. These
techniques are "thinking strategies"
to bring out the creative energies of
individuals and generate ideas and
approaches to solving problems and
making consensus decisions.

 A technique that promotes creativity by encouraging

idea generation through noncritical discussion.

The basic rules are:
No idea is too ridiculous. Group members are
encouraged to state any extreme or outlandish idea.
Each idea presented belongs to the group, not to the
person stating it. In this way, group members utilize
and build on the ideas of others.
No idea can be critical. The purpose of the session is
to generate, not evaluate idea.

 Brainstorming
verbal throwing out of ideas
recorder writes down all ideas without

discussion
group discusses and combines ideas
vote to determine top 3 - 5 ideas
outline implementation steps

 Brainstormingusesaface-to-

face,interactivegroup to spontaneously
suggest ideas for problem solution.
The technique encourages members to
suggest alternatives regardless of their
likelihood of being implemented.
No critical comments are
allowed until all suggestions
have been listed. The object of
brainstorming is to promote
freer, more flexible thinking and
to enable group members to
build on one another's creativity.

 Another technique is to assigna

devil'sadvocate the role of

challenging the assumptions and
assertions made by the group.
The devil's advocate forces
the group to rethink its
approach to the problem and
to avoid reaching premature
consensus or making
unreasonable assumptions before
proceeding with problem
solutions.

What is the Stepladder

Technique?
The Stepladder Technique

is a

useful method for

encouraging individual
participation in group
decision making.

 The

Stepladder Technique is a

simple tool that manages how

members enter the decision-making
group. Developed by Steven Rogelberg,
Janet Barnes-Farrell and Charles Lowe in
1992, it encourages all members to
contribute on an individual level BEFORE
being influenced by anyone else. This results
in a wider variety of ideas, it prevents people
from "hiding" within the group, and it helps
people avoid being "steppedon" or
overpowered by stronger, louder group
members.

How to Use the Tool

The Stepladder Technique has

five

basic steps. Here's how it works.

STEP 1: Before getting together as a group,

present the task or problem to all members.

Give everyone sufficient time to think about
what needs to be done and to form their own
opinions on how to best accomplish the task
or solve the problem.

 Step 2: Form a core group of two

members. Have them discuss the

problem.
Step 3: Add a third group member to the
core group. The third member presents
ideas to the first two members BEFORE
hearing the ideas that have already been
discussed. After all three members have
laid out their solutions and ideas, they
discuss their options together.

 Step 4:Repeat the same process by adding

a fourth member, and so on, to the group.

Allow time for discussion after each additional
member has presented his or her ideas.
Step 5: Reach a final decision only after all

members have been brought in and

presented their ideas.

Key Points
The Stepladder Technique is a step-by-

step approach to help ensure that

all members of a group participate
and are heard. The technique allows
shy, quiet people to present their ideas
before other group members can
influence them, and it allows everyone
to hear many different viewpoints
before reaching a final decision.

 an objective facilitator

all members are

or leader manages the

group
keeps members
anonymous. The
facilitator manages the
flow of information, and
members may have no
idea who else is in the
group.

equal.
involves face-to-face
meetings, so
everyone knows who
the other members
are.

 is much quicker.
works best with
major decisions that
smaller groups
need input from a
that make a wide
large number of
range of
people.
decisions.

is a lengthy process,
is often used for

WhatIsNominalGroup
Technique?
A weighted ranking method that allows a
group to generate and prioritize a large
number of issues within a structure that
gives everyone an equal voice.
It promotes people together in a very
structured meeting that allows little
verbal communication.

BenefitsofUsingNGT

Reduces the number of

issues
All team members
participate
Rank orders items

NominalGroupTechnique
silent generation of ideas in small

groups - written
round robin recording of ideas - no
discussion
group discussion and clarification
prioritize top 5 (individuals write on
cards)
discussion
final vote

What are the procedures for NGT?

NGT is a facilitated process that has two parts.

NGTPARTI-Theissueis
definedandtheteam
generatesideas

GenerateIdeas
Define the issue
Generate ideas
Collect ideas
Clarify ideas
Combine ideas

Introduceandclarifythe
issueto be addressed by the team. Write

the
issue on a chart pack where everybody can see
it. Allow for clarification, but
do not let the group engage in a discussion of
the issue itself. Remember to
define unclear terms.

Generateideasto address the issue at hand.

>Working in silence, each team member writes down
his or her ideas on a
piece of paper. People should not confer with each
other and should sit
quietly until everyone finishes writing.
>Depending on the complexity of the topic, 5 to 10
minutes should be
allowed for the silent process. People need to have
enough time to get the
broad, general ideas down, but not enough to create
long, detailed lists.

Collecttheteam'sideas.Each
team member in turn reads out one of his or
her ideas. Write each idea on the chartpack.
This round robin should
continue until all of the ideas have been offered
and recorded. There should
be no discussion or side conversations during
this part of the session.

! Clarifyideas.Read each idea out loud.

If clarification is needed, the person
who provided the idea should explain it now.
This is an opportunity to clean up
the wording of any unclear statements. Others
may contribute if necessary.

Combineideas.Combine like

ideas when feasible, but only if both

originators agree to it. If they cannot agree,
leave the two ideas separate.

NGT PART II - The team makes the

selection
Assign letters to ideas
Rank ideas independently
Collate the rankings
Add the rankings
Rewrite the list in priority order
Perform a sanity check

! Assignaletterdesignationto

eachseparateidea.As with
Multivoting,
the facilitator assigns a letter to avoid confusion
with the vote tally.

Ranktheideasindependently. Each team

member writes down the items
by their letter designations and assigns them a numeric
value based on his or
her judgment of what is most important and what is
least important. The
highest number is assigned to the most important idea
and the lowest to the
least important idea. For example, if there are 8 items
lettered A to H, the
most important receives an 8 and the least important,

Collatetherankings.The facilitator
transcribes the team members'
rankings onto a chartpack, writing each
number next to the corresponding
idea.

! Addtherankings.The facilitator adds

the numbers across. The idea with
the highest point total is the one of most
importance to the whole team. It is
the highest priority item.

Rewritethelist.The facilitator rewrites

the list of ideas in the order of their
importance to the team.
! Performasanitycheck.Does the
prioritization make sense?

NGT EXAMPLE 1: A team is struggling

with some problems in the workplace.
The members performed NGT Part I which identified

the following issues:

A. Ineffective organizational structure
B. Poor communications outside the office
C. Lack of training
D. Poor communications within the office
E. Unclear mission and objectives
F. Poor distribution of office mail
G. Lack of feedback on reports to management

 PARTICIPATION-Is

Participants become

typically anonymous to
acquainted.
one another
Meet face to face
PARTICIPANTS- are
around the table
physically distant and
never meet
Communicate directly
PROCESS;
communication bw
participants is by way
of written
questionnaires and
feedback from the
monitoring staff.

Dios Mabalos Po!