Effective Teams through Better Group Processes

This section reviews how meeting process can and has been changed to make teams more effective and efficient.  We review published literature regarding what works and when.  In a later section, we use this literature to recommend an ideal meeting process. 

Introduction

Listen to lecture on teamwork (~16 minutes) 21 people have rated this page an average of 4.19 out of 5 stars.  See their suggestions and questions.  Rate this page. 21 people have rated this page an average of 3.86 out of 5 stars.  See their suggestions and questions.  Rate this page. 84 people have rated this page an average of 4.33 out of 5 stars.  See their suggestions and questions.  Rate this page. Introduction Objectives Nominal groups Delphi groups Communication Strategy Social Judgment Analysis Cognitive Mapping Lessons learned Integrative Group Process 1-Select the best 2-Meet before the meeting 3-Redo the list 4-Rate ideas 5-Discuss major differences 6-Ignore small differences What do you know? Presentations FAQ More   Recently asked:  I like the cognitive mapping approach, however feel that you may not always have time for members to thinking independently, the come together to review all ideas. Would cognitive mapping still work, if you broke out into small groups for the brainstorming?  See answer to this and other questions.

Would you like to have shorter more productive team meetings?  This session will help you learn how to do so.  First, we review some of the most commonly used approaches to structured group meetings.  We discuss what works and why.   We also review the shortcomings of these approaches.

Next, we present a new approach called Integrative Group Process (IGP). This approach uses parts and pieces known to help teamwork.  We give a step by step guide to IGP.

Objectives

• Describe key structured group processes, their advantages and disadvantages.

• Describe what leads to more effective meetings.

• Describe steps in Nominal, Delphi, Group Communication Strategy and Integrative Group Process.

Nominal Group Process

What is the idea?

The Nominal Group Technique (Delbecq, Van de Ven and Gustafson, 1975) is a generic name for face-to-face group techniques in which instructions are given to group members not to interact with each other except at specific steps in the process. The following are the steps in the process.

Steps In Nominal Group Process:

1. Silent idea generations,
2. Round-robin sharing of ideas,
3. Feedback to the group,
4. Explanatory group discussion,
5. Individual re-assessment, and
6. Mathematical aggregation of revised judgments.

The Nominal Group Process produces a prioritized list of ideas in 2 hours or less.

Does it work?

It does. Research on the Nominal Group Technique is extensive and shows that in numerous circumstances the process produces better results than unstructured group interactions (Campbell, 1966; Dunnett, Campbell, and Jaastad, 1963; Vroom, Grant, and Cotton, 1969; Gustafson, Shukla, Delbecq, and Walster, 1973; Van de Ven, 1974; Stumpf, 1978). Data suggests the following three principles for why Nominal group process is successful:

• First, ideas should not be evaluated one at a time. Rather the facilitator should collect many ideas before any one of them are evaluated. Postponing evaluation increases creative solutions.
• Second, in estimating numbers, thinking again improves the accuracy of the numbers. A sort of bootstrapping occurs, where the group members best themselves by listening to other group members and revising their own opinions.
• Finally, individual generation of ideas leads to more ideas and more creative ones than generating ideas while listening to other group members.

Because of these results, the IGP borrows from the Nominal Group Technique silent generation of ideas, postponement of evaluation and revision of numerical estimates after group discussion.

Problem with the process

While the Nominal Group Technique is widely used, it is not intended for all situations. It is especially not intended for tasks that require ordering or judging the worth of several alternatives. In these circumstances, this technique may produce judgments inferior to the judgment of the most knowledgeable group member (Holloman and Hendrick, 1972; Nemiroff, Pasmore, and Ford, 1976). But by far, the most serious problem with the process is that participants feel awkward about restrictions in their interactions. After the group meeting they may feel that the process and not they led them to the conclusions they arrived at. Therefore, they may not be committed to the group's consensus. Data show that Nominal group process is the wrong process when acceptance of the group's conclusions rather than originality is important. Acceptance is crucial as to whether the model is put to use. In these situations, less structured processes produce more widely accepted group decisions than Nominal Group Technique (Stumpf, 1978, Maier and Hoffman, 1964, Miner, 1976).

Delphi Group Process

What is the idea?

The Delphi Technique (Dalkey and Helmer, 1963) is a non face-to-face procedure for aggregating group members' opinions. Group members answer three interrelated questionnaires, the facilitator summarizes the responses and mails the synthesis back to the group members for further comment.

Does it work?

In some applications, for example in forecasting technological changes based on insights of a large group of experts, the Delphi method has proven useful (Campbell, 1966; Linstone and Turoff, 1975; Basu and Schroeder, 1977). Delphi is also useful in situations where conflict or status differences among group members are so strong as to be dysfunctional. The most insightful feature of the Delphi process is that a meeting of minds can occur without an actual meeting. Like the Delphi process, IGP relies on remote group interaction.

Problem with the process

Studies show that face-to-face interaction is superior to Delphi's remote and private opinion gathering (Sackman, 1974). Two studies comparing Nominal Group Technique to Delphi found the two techniques about equal (Seaver, 1977; Miner, 1976). In other studies, Delphi has been less accurate than Nominal Group Technique. In one study, for example, Delphi's remote feedback was detrimental and reduced the accuracy of the group members' estimates (Gustafson et al. 1973). Because of this research, IGP obtains individual's ideas remotely like the Delphi process but then subjects these remote and privately generated ideas to face-to-face interaction and improvement.

Group Communication Strategy

What is the idea?

The Group Communication Strategy originates from a set of normative instructions proposed by Hall and Watson (1970). These instructions provide the following guidelines for group interaction:

• Avoid arguing,
• Avoid win-lose statements,
• Avoid changing opinions in order to reduce conflict,
• Avoid conflict-reducing techniques such as majority votes and bargaining.
• View differences of opinion as natural and initial agreements as suspect.

Does it work?

Nemiroff, Pasmore, and Ford (1976) found that the Group Communication Strategy leads to high quality judgments without sacrificing the group's later acceptance of the judgments. These studies have been done with student subjects in situations where status differences may not exist. Holloman and Hendrick (1972) showed that, when there are large status differences, group members weigh the opinions and suggestions of high status persons more heavily. In groups with marked differences in the status of group members, this process may not do well. Furthermore, little is known about the success of normative instructions in situations where group members are in conflict or have substantial stakes in the final group judgment.

IGP has several steps, one of which involves face-to-face group interaction. During this step, the facilitator uses the guidelines suggested by the Group Communication Strategy.

Problem with the process

Our experience suggests that group members often disagree. We doubt that the Group Communication Strategy could be as effective in work groups with distinct status differences. Additional data is needed concerning the impact of these instructions on group behavior.

Social Judgment Analysis

What is the idea?

The Social Judgment Analysis (Hammond et al., 1976) is a group process that provides feedback about how group members judge an issue as opposed to which issue is more popular . It was designed to reduce the pressure for group members to comply with the group's mind set just to feel more accepted by the group. The following are the steps in the process:

1. Group members meet in face to face meetings, in which they have access to a computer.
2. Each group member rates a series of scenarios. A scenario is a combination of clues that affect a judgment. For example in judging credit worthiness of companies, the clues may be last year's profit, changes in market share, and management changes. A scenario is constructed by varying levels of these three clues. In the first scenario the company was not profitable last year but has gained a significant market share and its management has been stable. In the second scenario, the company may be profitable but have a small market share and a stable management. More scenarios can be constructed by differing the levels of each clue.
3. The computer analyzes the group members ratings to see which factors affect the judgment most. This is usually done through regressing the scenario ratings on the elements of or the clues in the scenarios.
4. The computer informs the group member concerning the results of the analysis: it tells them that the way they rated the scenarios suggests that certain clues are most important in their judgment. It then lists these clues.
5. Group members often do not agree with the results of the analysis and revise their ratings of the scenarios so that the ratings best fit with what they consider most important.
6. Once group members come to terms with they way they wish to judge the scenarios, a consensus model is developed and used to represent the group's judgment.

This may seem too much work for most meetings. But with growing use of computers, some of the major meetings of an organization can be organized using the Social Judgment Analysis.

The IGP borrows from the Social Judgment Theory the notion that feedback to the group members should focus on the merits of ideas and not the popularity of the ideas.

Does it work?

Data show that people change their opinion to conform with group norms. While this behavior is healthy for keeping the peace in the group, it is counter productive if ideas are being judged based on the popularity as opposed to their merits. Rohrbaugh's 1979 study showed that when feedback focused on why an idea was preferred as opposed to which idea was more popular, the group's final judgment was more accurate. In particular, in half the groups, the group's judgment was more accurate than the best member of the group.

Rohrbaugh also showed that this group process was more accurate than the Delphi method.

Problem with the process

Availability of computers hinders the full use of this method of conducting group meetings. Furthermore, the effects of this process on the accuracy of the group's judgment has not been replicated by others. Finally, and perhaps the most important the effect of Social Judgment Analysis on acceptance has not been studied. It may be that excessive use of computers and statistical models reduce acceptance as they reduce interaction among group members. On the other hand, a reasonable use may serve to simulate and inform interaction among group members, arouse interest and debate, and may enhance group's acceptance of the final model. More data is needed concerning this process.

Cognitive Mapping

What is the idea?

Eden, Jone and Sims (1983) developed a process for modeling how a group arrives at its judgments called Cognitive Mapping. This process starts with constructing two parallel statements of the problem. One showing the factors leading to the problem, the other showing the factors leading to a satisfactory solution. For example, the problem may be stated as "high labor costs," the solution may be stated as "lowering the labor cost." The causes of high labor cost and the factors leading to lowering labor costs are also organized. For example, a cause of the problem may be "shortage of qualified worker." A solution may be "more availability of qualified workers." Clearly, causes of the problem and factors leading to the solutions are related, usually a change of adjectives produces the other. Through linguistic manipulation of the statement of the problem, Cognitive Mapping hopes to stimulate new ideas.

Eden and colleagues, when they use Cognitive Mapping, often collect the group member's ideas about the problem and its solutions separately and then revise these ideas in a face-to-face meeting. Occasionally they quantify the influence of causes and effects through a Round Robin process, where group members write down their estimates and share them afterwards. They, then, simulate how changing one factor may affect the problem. These simulations may lead to new insights into the problem.

The IGP borrows from this process the notion that feedback to the group members should focus on the merits of ideas and not the popularity of the ideas. In addition, both IGP and Cognitive Mapping are built on the notion that group members ideas should be solicited before the actual face to face meeting.

Does it work?

Data show that problem statement has a direct and lasting effect on the solutions that group members can think of. The Cognitive Mapping strategy is unique in insisting that the problem be defined in at least two ways and therefore it allows for alternative perspectives on the problem.

Problem with the process

More data is needed on the effectiveness of this process. In addition, it is not clear whether untrained facilitators can indeed conduct the meetings without substantial training in Cognitive Mapping procedures.

What do we want? Faster meetings. More fun meetings. More productive meetings.

Summary of lessons learned
& principles recommended

What has been learned?

There are many group processes. A review of some of these processes creates a bewildering methods of conducting team work. In this section, I review key lasting lessons that has been shown by data to be effective tools for managing teams. Two decades of research on effective group work point to several lessons:

• Postpone evaluation. It is best to separate idea generation from idea evaluations. When evaluation is postponed, more ideas and more creative ideas emerge.
• Do it again. It is best to think through the decisions again. In repetition, people gain confidence in what they are doing and can see pitfalls previously missed.
• Meet before the meeting. It is useful to get input from group members individually, before they can influence each other.
• Break through group's mind set. It is important to evaluate ideas based on their merit and not based on their popularity.
• Change the problem frame. It is important to define the problem in different ways.
• Instruct the group. It is best to instruct group members to keep their heads and accept conflict as productive.

What is borrowed?

• IGP and the Nominal Group Technique both rely on improving estimates of relative importance of ideas through repetition. Both require the group member to assess, discuss, and revise their numerical estimates. In addition, both approaches postpone evaluation of ideas until the facilitator has collected the ideas of all members.
• Like Delphi, IGP obtains remote and private opinions. But these remote interactions are followed by face-to-face interactions.
• In IGP, the facilitator follows the Group Communication instructions as ground rules for group interaction.
• Both the IGP and the Social Judgment Analysis focus discussion on the group member's reasoning rather than the group's choice and consensus.
• Like Cognitive Mapping, the IGP facilitator privately solicits individual ideas and revises these ideas in a face-to-face group meeting.

Presentations

To assist you in reviewing the material in this lecture, please see slides and narrated lecture.  Narrated lecture require use of Flash.  You can also see the same lecture presented in 10 minute segments on YouTube.com.  See below a review of the literature on what works in group processes:

The review of the literature continues:

Integrative Group Process

The process we recommend for your use is called Integrative Group Process.  It is an eclectic group process based on recent research on teamwork and group interaction literature.  This process has 6 steps (described in more detail in a separate page):

1-Select the best
2-Meet before the meeting
3-Redo the list
4-Rate ideas
5-Discuss major differences
6-Ignore small differences

See below a short discussion of how Integrative Group Process works:

For more details on the process, frequently asked questions, narrated slides and other exercises, please click here.

Frequently Asked Question

Ask a question and we will answer it within the next 48 hours.  If you have no questions, please review the answer to the questions asked by others: 

Question: is there a way to see the presentations because even the school computers cannot work with the slides. the computer lab workers told me to contact my instructor.   Answer: I will follow up with you directly to get more information and fix this problem.   This question was asked on 6/20/2008 9:30:05 PM and answered on 6/21/2008 6:58:39 AM.

Question: so, basically, all we are doing is a repitition of the control chart on the web page?  Answer: Yes  This question was asked on 6/20/2008 3:59:50 PM and answered on 6/20/2008 8:22:16 PM.

Question: It's been a hard week for me and I have barely been able to do my assignments until tonight. On the "comment on a resolution" assignment, there was no direct resolution for me to comment on so I just went to last weeks questions and commented on one from there. Was this the correct way to do it?  Answer:  No I will revise the section so that there is a resolution for you to comment on. Check by mid-day tomorrow to see if a new one is posted.  This question was asked on 6/15/2008 11:31:54 PM and answered on 6/16/2008 12:42:55 AM.

Question: Would the change that I make to my habit influence the life or at least the habits of the process owner?  Answer: Yes it should.  This question was asked on 6/15/2008 9:49:21 PM and answered on 6/15/2008 10:48:42 PM.

Question: I am using a co-worker as my process owner, but I only see this person 4-5 times per week. Is this frequent enough? You (Professor Alemi) mentioned using a pet when I came to the on campus intro session. How will this work for the "group meetings?" Any suggestions?  Answer: I think a pet can help you change your environment by forcing you to go out and exercise the pet.   This question was asked on 6/15/2008 8:43:38 PM and answered on 6/15/2008 10:46:46 PM.

Question: My most influential process owner is not taking this project seriously; encouraging me to sleep in and "relax". I'm sure this has happend before, what adivce can you provide in coping with someone trying to sabotage the process to implement change.  Answer: Set meeting time, following meeting rules described in the lecture and you will be fine. Help the person articulate what in the environment is affecting you, ask for changes in the environment. Do not look for interventions you can make to change your lifestyle until you flow chart the current situation and both of you understand what precedes over eating or missed exercises.   This question was asked on 6/15/2008 7:13:25 PM and answered on 6/15/2008 10:42:24 PM.

Question: Initially, I was going to eliminate fast food from four specific days a week. I completely failed last week. Would it be okay if I changed the resolution to any four days of the week? My process owner strongly suggests I eliminate it altogether, but I'm not sure I can do this since I'm not really sure yet why I eat this way.  Answer: Yes that is OK. Focus on how you can set up your environment so that you can succeed.   This question was asked on 6/15/2008 4:22:02 PM and answered on 6/15/2008 10:38:53 PM.

Question: I am trying to reduce my intake of fast food. A couple of months ago, I began a diet with Jenny Craig, but quit after a few weeks. How do you feel about losing weight through a system like this? If you approve, would my "coach" at Jenny Craig be part of my process owners team?  Answer: This is a great idea but your coach at Jenny Craig is not considered a process owner as she or he does not share an environment with you.   This question was asked on 6/15/2008 3:26:53 PM and answered on 6/15/2008 10:35:58 PM.

Question: Where do I post so others here online can help and look?  Answer: I am not sure what this question is referring to. If you are asking where you post your resolutions, so others can comment on it, please make the individual posts as per assignments and I will over time show the posting to other students.   This question was asked on 6/15/2008 2:14:35 PM and answered on 6/15/2008 10:34:46 PM.

Question: In reference to "Lasing Improvement" - and how what we do affects one another such as friends and family, how true is this?   Answer: If you changed a shared environment, by definition this will affect others. Change is more likely to be lasting if several daily routines, friends and others would reinforce the change.   This question was asked on 6/14/2008 10:33:04 PM and answered on 6/15/2008 11:16:53 AM.

Suggestions for Improvement

Add your own suggestions or read below suggestions made by others regarding how to improve this session:

Suggestion: My team has had quite a turnaround this past week with support and helping me, it is really unbelievable when someone is really there for you when you need it!  This suggestion was left on 7/5/2008 11:49:52 PM.

Suggestion: At first I had three people on my team, but realistically< one could only be my daily support, so I used my husband. The other two will continue to be supportive every once in a while.  This suggestion was left on 7/3/2008 5:48:45 PM.

Suggestion: one of my process is owners is a friend/co-worker who has been trying to exercise and be in shape just like me. I think taking this course is going to help the both of us greatly except I'm the only one who's paying for this class! =(  This suggestion was left on 6/15/2008 11:35:19 PM.

Suggestion: The cycle map was a little difficult to get started, but in the end it really made me think about how I need to change my lifestyle in order to get the results that I want.   This suggestion was left on 6/15/2008 11:17:26 PM.

Suggestion: I think someone who will be one of my process owners is a room mate of mine who just recently started going to the gym. Would this be a bad thing since she is my room mate and it would also be a social experience, but at the same time we are exercising together and this is occurring more than it normally would?  This suggestion was left on 6/15/2008 8:32:19 PM.

Suggestion: It was interesting to put all the routines in to a cycle map.  This suggestion was left on 6/15/2008 7:38:07 PM.

Suggestion: For the past week, I have traveled to a seminar and now to my fiancee's house to get ready for the wedding. Although my process owner has not been with me, the encouragement and ideas are helpful. Now that I will be stabilized in an area, I expect our changes to be more precise as the feedback can be observed not only by myself but by the objective outlook of my performance team.  This suggestion was left on 6/15/2008 2:16:35 PM.

Suggestion: I am enjoying having my family be a part of this experience.  This suggestion was left on 6/14/2008 10:46:03 PM.

Suggestion: I once asked my husband to help me improve in not being on the internet for too long and his response was "I can't do it for you - you have to do it for your self" and I agreed with him. This course is certainly backing up my request and my husband has now agreed to help me make changes needed on the area chosen!  This suggestion was left on 6/14/2008 10:36:05 PM.

Suggestion: The part about having a definite start and end time for the meetings was a good reminder. It is so easy to loose focus and as the slides suggested, talk about everything and leave the main point of discussion till the end. I felt this lecture was comprehendable and made several valid points.   This suggestion was left on 6/14/2008 10:31:15 PM.