Adapting a small-group decision making tool to work in a meeting of just four hours

What is it about?

It is a way to reduce the duration, and to give more emphasis to the action planning stage in group decision making. To examine a possible loss in efficacy, six groups of ten university students, working under two different protocols, and three control groups, were given the same objective and similar conditions. This exploratory experiment compared group performance by change in team commitment, divergent thinking preferences, productivity, and the participants’ evaluation of the different methods. Results show that the method was effective in changing participants’ perspectives regarding divergent thinking and team commitment. In the control groups, however, there were no changes as a consequence of the sessions. Results also suggest that the same problem solving effectiveness can be attained in a shorter time than that traditionally used, and without prior training. These findings open the door to developing new problem solving techniques and team work processes, and to more efficient organizational creativity and innovation methodologies.

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Why is it important?

To reduce the time needed to make group decisions, without loss in effectiveness, leadership has to improve, and to follow specific procedures that will guarantee sound results

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