Sunday, July 31, 2011

Avoiding 'groupthink' -- decision making for teams

There are three main components to consider in consulting a group for decision making:

• Sharing knowledge and related content
• Discussing and overlaying knowledge on the data at hand
• Collectively deciding the best course of action from the choices that are presented.

There are several alternatives to consider:
 
• Should the leader make the decision?
• Should the leader delegate the decision to some other member of the group?
• Will the group make the decision through some form of majority vote?
• Should all decisions involving the group be made by consensus?
 
Even when a consensus approach is used, there is a danger that the decision may represent a false consensus.  A false consensus occurs when members of a group appear to accept a proposed course of action but actually have private reservations which, for whatever reason, they choose not to share with the other members of the group.

References:

http://www.infoq.com/articles/facilitators-guide-book-review
http://www.sal.tkk.fi/vanhat_sivut/Opinnot/Mat.../group_decision_making04.pdf
http://dssresources.com/history/dsshistory.html

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