Nominal Group Technique
A facilitation method that extends brainstorming by adding a structured voting step to score and rank ideas, helping the group identify the most valuable items for deeper discussion or prioritization.
Key Points
- Typical flow: silent idea generation, round-robin sharing, clarification without debate, then independent voting to rank ideas.
- Reduces dominance and groupthink by giving each participant an equal voice; voting can be anonymous.
- Produces a prioritized list to guide next steps, such as deeper analysis or selection.
- Useful for requirements, risk response selection, decision making, and backlog prioritization in time-boxed workshops.
Example
During a requirements workshop, the team brainstorms features for a new customer portal. After listing and clarifying all ideas, each participant privately assigns scores to the features. The facilitator tallies the scores to create a ranked list, and the top items are scheduled for detailed elaboration.
PMP Example Question
In a facilitated session, the team generates many improvement ideas. The project manager then asks members to privately score each idea, and the aggregated scores produce a ranked shortlist for further discussion. What technique is being used?
- Brainstorming
- Delphi technique
- Nominal Group Technique
- Affinity diagram
Correct Answer: C - Nominal Group Technique
Explanation: NGT augments brainstorming with structured voting to rank ideas for prioritization.
