Building Effective Project Teams[i]

Issues in Decision Making

Session 4

You have probably already seen evidence of the fact that your team will function more effectively if individual team members know what to do and interact well with one another.  The training sessions we are providing and the ideas presented on this form are designed to help your team function well together.  This particular training session is designed to acquaint you with important information about procedures that your group can use to make quality decisions.  A major emphasis of these training activities is to encourage you to look for ways to improve how your team functions so that you can generate a quality team project.

As teams work on tasks and projects, it often becomes apparent that no matter how well a group appears to function, it can still make inferior choices and product faulty output.  Why is this and how can a group avoid problems such as these?  As it turns out, all groups encounter similar types of problems.  Thus, people who study groups and group behavior have identified several symptoms that group members can look for to help them avoid these problems.  Further, there are a number of tools that groups can use to structure their activities to overcome these problems.  Each of these issues are summarized below:

Symptoms of Faulty Group Behavior

The term Groupthink has been used to describe the collection of faulty behaviors that groups may engage in when they become highly cohesive.  Groupthink often happens in particular types of situations.  For example, when…

·          Something external to the group threatens group members' decisions or actions

·          There is an excessively directive or overbearing leader

·          The environment in which the group operates is excessively complex or fast-changing

 When this happens, groups often engage in the following behaviors…

·          Group members tend to develop an agreement-at-any-cost mentality

·          Members ignore the limitations or incorrectness of their analyses and decisions as well as potential negative consequences of their choices

·          Group members collectively rationalize their choices (i.e., they find excuses to accept their choices regardless of how poor those choices are)

·          Group members who deviate from the accepted group norms or positions are censored or silenced

 The consequences of these behaviors for groups may include…

·          The group engages in an incomplete generation of alternatives

·          Group members do not develop a complete understanding of the group's goals and objectives

·          There is a failure by group members to examine the risks associated with their preferred choices

·          Group members engage in a sub-optimal search of alternatives and information

·          The group develops a bias in the interpretation of the information that members examine and use

·          Group members fail to appraise and reappraise the alternatives they are considering

Techniques You Can Use to Overcome Faulty Group Behavior

Because of problems such as these, a number of people have developed useful group tools and meeting procedures to overcome some of these problems.  These tools are useful to overcome Groupthink because they encourage group members to critically examine the assumptions they make, the procedures they use, and the decisions they make.  Although you will probably not need to use all of these tools, it is nevertheless useful to be aware of them so that you can select and use those that are most appropriate for your group's situation.

·          Brainstorming: Before a group makes a decision, its members should make sure that they have examined a broad range of options.  One of the easiest ways to generate a list of ideas is to brainstorm.  Brainstorming is a free-form approach to generating ideas in which members are encouraged to be as creative as possible without restricting their ideas. This can result in more equal involvement and a wealth of new and creative ideas. To do this, group members should …

a)       Start by defining a question, then ask people to generate as many ideas about this issue as possible

b)       Not be critical of any idea, no matter how wild or crazy it appears to be on the surface. 

c)       Not discuss the proposed ideas until the brainstorming session is over

d)       Let people piggyback on already generated ideas (i.e., to add extensions to proposed ideas)

e)       Write all the ideas on a chalkboard, pad of paper, or computer screen that everyone can see

·          Multivoting: This is a method for conducting a straw-poll (a vote) to select the most important or popular items from a list of alternatives.  These votes are generally done without extensive discussion because the purpose is to develop a quick consensus view of the group's position about the issues.  Multivoting is often done following brainstorming to narrow down the large list of ideas generated during brainstorming in order to develop a list that is a workable size.  This can be done by…

a)       Generating a list of items and number each item

b)       Combine items that all group members agree seem to be similar or identical

c)       Renumber all of the items after they are combined

d)       Discuss those items that are confusing or that someone does not understand

e)       Members should individually choose a number of items they prefer

f)        Tally the total votes for each item from each group member

g)       Eliminate the items that receive the fewest votes

h)       Repeat the process as needed

·          Nominal Group Technique (NGT): This is a more structured approach than the earlier two methods.  It is called "nominal" because during the session, the group doesn't engage in the usual amount of interaction that is typical in a normal group.  This is an effective technique when the issues the group needs to discuss are controversial or when the team just cannot reach a decision using normal methods.  Techniques in NT include:

a)       Define the question that will be considered by the group, write it on  the chalk board or sheets of paper that are distributed to group members, and discuss the question as needed

b)       Generate ideas by having members write down ideas on sheets of paper or on their computer

c)       List the ideas publicly.  This can be done by having group members read their ideas in round robin fashion (have one member list his/her best idea, then have the next person list their best idea; once all members have listed their best idea, repeat for the second best and so on).  Alternatively, ideas can be written on sticky paper which are put on the wall one by one.

d)       Discuss and combine ideas only after all ideas have been shared

e)       Vote on the ideas by giving group members a number of cards on which they can record their votes.  The number of cards is generally about one-quarter of the number of ideas.  Group members may also be given a number of points that they can allot to ideas.  The tallies are used select the decision.

There are a large number of other techniques that your group could use to structure your decision making activities.  The point is that structured techniques can help your group overcome problems like Groupthink that will cause your group to generate an inferior project.   Similarly, roles are important because they will help your group function better as it makes decisions and choices.  To review, remember that roles could include Presider or Meeting Leader, File Manager or Project Master, Meeting Coordinator, and Intermediary.   Each role is important because it will help your team to function effectively as it makes decisions.  This should help your team to produce a better quality project.