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The Nominal Group Technique

We have found the Nominal Group Technique (Delbecq, Van de Ven and Gustafson, 1975) to be particularly helpful for facilitating group discussions to identify and prioritize patients' needs. "Nominal Group Technique" is the generic name for face-to-face group techniques that consist of:

1. Silent idea generation in writing.
2. Round-robin sharing of ideas to record each idea succinctly on a flip chart.
3. Clarifying discussion and elimination of duplicate recorded ideas.
4. Individual rank-ordering or rating of priorities.
5. Mathematical aggregation of priorities derived from rank-ordering or rating.

The primary appeal of this technique is that it identifies and produces a prioritized list of ideas in two hours or less. Four principles contribute to its success:

• Ideas generated individually in silence are more numerous and creative than those arrived at while listening to fellow participants.
• Ideas are not evaluated one at a time. Rather, the facilitator collects many ideas before any are evaluated. Postponed evaluation promotes more prolific and diverse items on each person's list.
• Participation is balanced among members, with equal opportunity for both reserved and dominant types to state their ideas.
• Mathematical rank-ordering improves the accuracy of aggregating group judgement.

For a more comprehensive description of the nominal group technique, we recommend reading Group Techniques for Program Planning: A Guide to Nominal Group and Delphi Processes (Delbecq, Van de Ven and Gustafson, 1974).

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