tool to enable you and your team to come up with new ideas for improvement, carried out in silence at first

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What is Nominal Group Technique?
Nominal Group Technique is a divergent thinking
process used to generate lots of ideas to find
potential solutions to a specific problem. It is a
structured process similar to brainstorming
although ideas are initially generated in silence.
When would you use this tool?
Nominal Group Technique may be used when you
want to generate lots of ideas to solve a problem.
It may be used as part of a ‘Snorkel’ process to
generate, organise and prioritise ideas.
What are the benefits of using this tool?
The main benefit of using this tool is that it all members of the group can contribute ideas and prevents
individuals from dominating the discussion. The group are given the opportunity for silent reflection
and to bounce ideas off each other to create new ideas. This leads to more ideas being generated and
more options to choose from. This technique may be used in conjunction with convergent thinking
techniques such as Affinity Diagrams and Ease / Benefit Analysis to organise and prioritise ideas.
Who needs to be involved?
Include anybody who is involved in the process
that you are looking out. This could include staff,
leaders, service users or key stakeholders – This
may be done in groups of between 5-10 people to
allow space and time for discussion
What resources do I need?
 Flipchart paper/board
 Post-it notes & pens
 Wall space or flipchart stand
 15-20 minutes
Nominal Group
Technique
ABC
improvement
iSkills for
How do you do it?
Step 1: Describe the process briefly to participants. Outline the problem under discussion and ask
participants to generate as many ideas for solutions as possible, in silence. The wilder and wackier the
better – it is important that no ideas are filtered out at this point. Each idea is written on a post-it
note. This often takes around 5 minutes and there is no limit to the number of ideas generated.
Step 2: Each person reads out their idea and places it on the flip
chart/board.
Step 3: Ideas may be discussed and new ideas generated from this
discussion. Duplicated ideas can be brought together at this point. Each
idea should then be numbered.
Step 4: See also Affinity Diagrams, Ease / Benefit Analysis Improvement
Skills Guides to organise and prioritise your ideas

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