Nominal technique

The nominal group technique is considered to be more effective than the brainstorming or the Delphi technique. The group members are all physically present, just as in a traditional committee meeting, but they operate independently, generating ideas for solving the problem is silence and in writing. The group leaders or the coordinator either collects these written ideas and writes them on a large blackboard for everyone to see, or he asks each member to speak out his solution and writes it on the blackboard as he receives it. No discussion takes place until all these ideas are recorded. These ideas are discussed one by one, in turn and each participant is encouraged to comment for the purpose of clarification. After all ideas are discussed and clarified, they are evaluated for their merits and drawbacks, each participating member is required to vote on each ideas and assign it a rank on the basis of priority of each alternative solution. The idea with highest aggregate ranking is selected as a solution to the problem.