Brainstorming vs Nominal Group Technique

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Designed to help those that are preparing to take the PMP or CAPM Certification Exam, each post within this series presents a comparison of common concepts that appear on the PMP and CAPM exams.

This is our lucky thirteenth post in our PMP Concepts Learning Series

Each post within this series will present a comparison of common concepts that appear on the PMP and CAPM exams.

Brainstorming vs Nominal Group Technique

Brainstorming and nominal group technique are both idea-generating approaches used in project management – for developing size estimates, identifying risks, gathering requirements, etc.

Brainstorming

Brainstorming is a group creativity technique that can be used for multiple aspects of project management. Brainstorming involves facilitating a group of individuals in generating as many ideas on a topic as possible. To be most effective, participants are challenged to think creatively and consider all ideas and options and are ensured of a “safe space” to share their ideas.

Nominal Group Technique

Nominal group technique takes brainstorming a step further by adding a voting process to rank the ideas that are generated. However, versus using simple voting, each participant must provide their input and there is discussion regarding the relative ranking of that result. This allows participants to be more engaged in the discussion and in the solutions.

Example

As standard practice, I will conduct a brainstorming session early on in my projects to have team members identify the risks of the project – both threats and opportunities. This allows the group to interact together (preferably in-person, but can also be done virtually with some limitations) and the team begins to form their identity and embrace the challenge of the project as united group.

I will then leverage a nominal group technique approach when it comes to evaluating and ranking the risks. Everyone will write down their votes, all votes are then shared, and then we discuss the results in order to validate our final risk ranking.

Summary

Both brainstorming and nominal group technique are group creativity techniques that can be extremely beneficial in the planning and analysis of project management. These techniques allow team members or groups of stakeholders to work as a team on identifying problems and solutions.

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