Group Decision Making Techniques In Organization

By Author: William King
Total Articles: 365
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There come several instances in daily existence when decision making is considered necessary for personal and professional life. Group Decision Making is a complex process as it includes opinions and inputs of several people. This composite procedure can be approached by several methods. Some of them are:

Interacting Group Technique:
This type of technique involves people who interact face to face and on daily basis and they use both verbal and non-verbal skills to communicate with each other. This technique is not considered much reliable at organizational level decision making process because non-verbal symbols are misinterpreted sometimes which can affect the verdict badly.

Brainstorming:
Brainstorming is an idea generation process that specifically encourages any all alternatives while withholding any criticism of those alternatives. It is meant to overcome the pressure of conformity that impede to the development of inventive substitutes. In Brainstorming usual session people are invited to meet each other physically, one person states the problem in a clear manner and respondents freewheel to ...
... generate multiple ideas in a given length of time. Everyone can give multiple ideas even how absurd it is, but no one can pass any criticism on those ideas unless the session is open for discussion on alternatives.

Brainstorming is not found effective in either quantity or quality of ideas generated, because researchers give evidence of problems as distraction, production blockage, evaluation apprehension and social loafing during such kind of sessions. People are much more productive in solitary states as compared to meetings due to production blockage. People used to speak a lot in brainstorming sessions that hinders the brain to generate ideas.

Nominal Group Technique:
A better form of Brainstorming is Nominal Group Decision Making Technique. People are restricted to have discussion or inter-personal communication during nominal session. Employees are met physically but they act independently, they are asked to write their ideas in response to a problem individually. After this silent period, each member presents his ideas to the group, until all ideas have been presented and recorded no discussion takes place.

The group now discusses the ideas for clarity and evaluates them. Each group member silently and independently ranks the idea. The idea with the highest aggregate ranking determines the final decision. It is much better technique to make a decision in a group.

Electronic Meeting:
In Electronic Meeting, Nominal Group Technique is merged with new computer technology. Half dozen to a dozen people sit around a table and same process is repeated, respondents write their ideas on computers in front of them which are apparent to others just by a click of tab. This process is considered as the best because individual comments as well as aggregate votes are displayed on a projection screen. It allows people to be brutally honest, and the process is fast as chitchat is eliminated. Participants can talk at once, and remain anonymous.

The major disadvantage of group decision making is that it is more time consuming as compared to individual decision making.

William King is the director of Mobile Phones Wholesale Suppliers: http://www.wholesalepages.co.uk/ukwholesalers/Mobile_Phones-119-0.html , UK Wholesale Suppliers, Distributors, Dropshippers & Manufacturers: http://www.dailytrader.com/uk/ and Abu Dhabi Classified Business Directory: http://www.adcbuae.com . He has 18 years of experience in the marketing and trading industries and has been helping retailers, entrepreneurs and startups with their product sourcing, promotion, marketing and supply chain requirements.