Group decision making is a participatory process wherein members of the team collectivity analyze problems and look for solutions together. In project management, group decision-making is usually organized by the leader. The members of the group have a collective accountability for the decisions that they have created. The group is also responsible delegating tasks that have been agreed on by the team.
There are many ways on how group decision-making is established. The group decision-making techniques is an assessment process that presents many alternatives in the form of future actions. This particular technique engages each team member to contribute to the decision-making process.
There are different types of group decision-making techniques and these techniques are used to create, classify as well as prioritize the product requirements. Below are the different methods used in reaching a group decision.
- Unanimity: This decision is achieved when everyone in the team agrees on a single action. An example of reaching unanimity is the Delphi technique wherein a selective group of experts answer questionnaires and give feedback on the responses of each round of gathering requirements.
- Majority: The decision is obtained from more than 50% of the team members. To avoid a tie, it is important to have an uneven number of participants during the group decision making.
- Plurality: Plurality is achieved when the largest block of the group decided. This is used when there are more than two options being nominated upon.
- Dictatorship: Dictatorship is when only one individual – usually the project leader – make the decision for the entire group.
These types of group decision-making techniques can also be applied to the group creativity techniques in order to identify and determine the product requirements.
This term is defined in the 5th edition of the PMBOK.