Throughout our lives we form countless groups due to the force with which the groupthink. This specific type of thinking is what takes us a step further when it comes to seeking the solution to those problems that a single person could not solve individually..
Every group must make decisions. Some will choose well, others badly. The problem, however, is not choosing right or wrong, but getting a group to function properly so that the decision made is the best possible within the possibilities and limitations of this group..
All decision making is a process complex and as a process it looks affected by various factors. Some of these will have their origin in the individual differences of the members that make up the group, others in the nature of the decision to be made and there may even be contextual factors that affect group decision-making..
One of the main factors that affect decision-making is the level of participation and hierarchy that the group has. It was not difficult to come to think that any group formed by members who were not very participative was not destined to make the most appropriate decisions. However, certain people may believe that a well-ranked group will make better decisions. Nothing is further from reality, if our group has a high level of hierarchy, all decision-making will fall on a small number of people (those who enjoy positions of high importance), which will affect the quality of decision-making..
The homework What the group is facing is also a factor to take into account. It has to do with difficulty of the decision, the nature task or if it requires one or more decisions. If the task is ambiguous, difficult, or requires making too many decisions, group members may conflict more easily. This would greatly increase the level of uncertainty of the task to be faced, which would negatively affect if the group does not have enough time or adequate capacity to choose the most appropriate decision for each situation.
The method or rule that the group follows when making a decision is also a key factor. The most used is usually that of voting either unanimously or by majority..
Finally, another differential factor would be the individual differences of each member of the group. The personal characteristics, experience, creativity or capacity of each one directly affect the search for alternatives to solve problems, which is directly related to decision-making.
However, in any group a minimum of order. In the first place, it must be explored to obtain information, the second would be to generate alternatives with the acquired data to, finally, choose the one that best fits the task to be developed.
We will all agree that, in the first moment of decision-making, it is interesting for the group to incorporate the greater number of possible alternatives. In this way we can help the group have a wide range of options to choose from..
For this, among the most used techniques we find the brainstorming (or brainstorming). In it, group members openly and spontaneously express their opinions on a specific topic, nor take into account the interest, effectiveness or appropriateness of those ideas. The idea is to provide as many alternatives as possible without censoring any. In addition, similar to brainstorming we would have the table wheel. This technique is exactly the same as the previous one with the exception that the members must follow a rotating shift to contribute their opinions..
The basic principle of both techniques is the fact that all ideas provided are taken as valid or good, although they are not to the same extent.
Once we have generated the alternatives, the technique SWOT (Weaknesses, Threats, Strengths and Opportunities) is what helps us to give them a value. Once the SWOTs of the different alternatives have been analyzed, they would be classified according to their greater or lesser belonging to the situation in which we find ourselves..
Along with these techniques we could include that of the Nominal Group, which follows the following steps:
The Phillips 66 it can be of great help for complex problems that can be divided into different parts. In this technique, groups of 6 people are formed to whom a part of the problem is given to discuss for 6 minutes. Finally, a spokesperson from each group will report the results of each discussion..
Finally, it is worth highlighting in this list of techniques the Delphi process. This is a very useful technique, but with some limitations (it takes a long time to make a decision). However, the more communication technologies advance, the faster this process becomes (email allows us to have almost immediately the responses of all the members that are part of the group.
The Delphi Process intervenes in the following way:
Once all the alternatives have been evaluated, you have to decide. When talking about groups, what is expected is that the final decision will be made unanimously, but this option is not always possible and sometimes it is not the right option. To try to optimize and improve the result, a series of methods can be used to achieve a majority decision, among which the following stand out: vote, the approving vote, the sum of ranks, the minimum deviation wave aggregation of numeric expressions.
Yet No Comments