In this presentation, we will see a couple more brainstorming techniques, and then after the team has generated a large number of ideas, we will see a couple tools to help you reduce the list and finally to make a selection. Nominal group technique is similar to the slip method of brainstorming that we discussed earlier. The topic or problem should be defined to start with. Participants then get 5 to 10 minutes to quietly write their ideas on a piece of paper. The facilitator then asks for one idea from each participant in sequence. The facilitator will write these on a flip chart. Like other brainstorming methods, no discussion or evaluation is allowed at this point. When all ideas are accurately recorded, discussion begins, to clarify and evaluate ideas. Finally, the group will select one or more ideas through the use of the team decision-making tools we'll talk about it in a few minutes. Affinity diagrams are another silent technique. It's particularly useful when the number of ideas is very large or the problem or causes being brainstormed are not well defined. Allow 5 to 10 minutes for participants to write ideas down on Post-it notes, one idea per Post-it note. When everyone is done, put them all on a wall or a white board. All the members of the team then go to the board and silently rearrange the ideas into logical groups. No talking while this is done. If an idea appears to be closely related to two groups, then write another note and put it in both. This method can take 50 to 75 ideas and reduce them to six or eight groups. Once the logical groups have been developed, the team can talk and discuss a name or label for each group. When you've completed a brainstorm and have a list of ideas, you'll want to begin to reduce that list. It's usually easy to combine a large number of ideas similar to the grouping in the affinity diagram. This combining step will generate a lot of useful discussions and clarification. Then we can ask the group if any of the remaining ideas should be considered. There are two ways to do this. One is to just vote on these ideas; another is to say that no idea is removed from consideration without the consent of the person who proposed it. Sometimes, the team cannot see the value of an idea right away, and if one team member feels strongly that it should stay, you should keep it. And never discard an idea. Ideas that are not selected should be set aside and preserved – they might be useful later. Finally, your list of ideas will be reduced to a manageable size and you can use decision-making tools for a final selection. One of the decision-making tools is prioritization. Start this after you have done list reduction. Have each participant rank order their top picks for selection. Say you've reduced your idea, your list, to 12 ideas. Each participant can write on a piece of paper which five they think are best and number them one through five with one being the best. This is done individually so participants do not influence each other at this point. Then ask each participant, in turn, for their rankings or pass the papers to the facilitator. The rank numbers are written next to each idea, and when they're all recorded, add up the rankings for each idea. At this point, you could select the idea with the lowest number, but more discussion is a good idea. It may be useful for the team to know why different participants made their rankings. What are their reasons? Finally, after discussion, the team agrees on a selection. It may be the idea with the lowest-ranking number but the discussion may lead them to a different decision. Remember, the team makes the decision, not the tool. Another decision making tool is multivoting. In multivoting, each team member gets multiple votes, usually five, but if there are a large number of ideas, there might be more. Again, start with a reduced list. If you have 12 ideas, you might allot five votes to each participant. Participants can apply these votes any way they want. They could vote once each for their top five ideas, or if they feel really strong about one idea, they can put all five votes on that one, or they can do anything in between. Record and add up all the votes. Discuss the reasons for voting. If the decision is not clear, you may as a group remove items that got no votes or only a few votes and then vote again. For team decision making, we usually go through a sequence where we generate a large number of ideas. Then through the use of various tools, we make the list smaller until we reach a decision. There are a lot of options for what tools we use. We've discussed just a few of them here. It's important to remember to not let the tool exclusively determine the decision – the decision belongs to the team.