For project management professionals, what technique will you choose when facing diverse stakeholders, complex problem-solving requirements, and limited time for discussion? Some methods may come to mind when you think about this question, but I suggest the nominal group technique to handle this critical situation.
I have experienced the best output whenever I used this NGT during projects. There are many reasons to justify this for team decisions. In this blog, I will discuss some of them to prove it is a better technique.
What is the Nominal Group Technique?
Andrew H. Van de Ven and Andre Delbecq developed this nominal group technique. This technique is a structured method that involves brainstorming sessions, including all team members. When every member comes up with an idea, the session helps develop a better plan for the project. It helps to discuss possible risks, the priority of risk mitigation, the plan for the new projects, and features that can added.
This comprehensive discussion helps the members to develop ideas on the topics discussed. Comparing the topics together, a suitable plan is constituted. As the team members discuss together on project plans, it will be easy for them to remember. This technique can be used by small and large groups as well as government and private organizations.
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How does the Nominal Group Technique Work?
The nominal group technique, or NGT, involves five significant steps. The sequence of all five steps will provide the project with the expected output. To perform the technique, PMPs must follow the procedures given below:
Step 1: Explaining the Situation
When a team needs a decision without dominance. The technique starts when the facilitator meets the team, explains the current situation, and states the risk involved or the point at which the solution is needed. The role of the facilitator is to ensure that all teammates understand the situation and make their contribution.
For example, in a project, the software requires adding new features. However, this feature is new for the entire project team; they will use NGT in this case. The facilitator will explain the details of the feature to team members as required. This process explains the situation.
Step 2: Silent Idea Generation
Once the facilitator explains the situation, every team member can individually note their ideas. Time will be given to come up with a better solution. Since the complete team is coming up with a solution, many solutions will have varied ideas.
In the example, as the process continues, the team members now think of ideas for adding the feature. They all write their theories to make it happen.
Step 3: Round-Robin Sharing
At this step, all team members share their ideas individually. The facilitator notes every idea as a recording on a board or flipchart. Every team member's idea will be reported.
As in the example, every team member will explain the feature development.
Step 4: Clarification and Discussion
When everyone is done sharing, the group again speaks about every idea. All team members discuss to ensure the feature is understood correctly and whether the shared idea can work or combine two or three ideas.
For example, the ideas of developers and team members can be discussed among the team. Comparison to check the stability of the concept and whether it will result in feature development
Step 5: Prioritization
The team members will pick the most important or relevant idea. The selection can based on the voting method or ranking method.
Based on the credibility of the suggested idea for the new feature development, the idea will be selected to be included in the development process.
These steps help create ideas based on experience and are selected by every team member.
What Are the Steps of the Nominal Group Technique?
The Nominal Group Technique (NGT) follows five structured steps designed to give everyone in a group equal input, avoid dominant voices taking over, and lead to faster, more balanced decisions.
Step 1: Define the Problem
Every NGT session starts with a clear, focused problem statement, ideally shaped using SMART criteria — specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. For example: "How can we improve customer satisfaction ratings by 20% within six months?" The facilitator's job here is to provide context, make sure everyone understands the problem the same way, and keep the scope tight enough for the group to generate genuinely practical solutions. Writing the problem statement somewhere visible — a whiteboard, shared screen, or printed handout — helps keep the whole group aligned before ideas start flowing.
Step 2: Silent Idea Generation
Once the problem is set, participants spend 5–10 minutes brainstorming independently and in complete silence — no talking, no discussion. This removes the influence of louder voices and social pressure, often surfacing more original ideas than a typical open discussion would. The emphasis at this stage is on quantity: more ideas mean more raw material to work with later. Sticky notes, shared documents, or a simple pen and paper all work fine here — what matters is that everyone works alone.
Step 3: Round-Robin Sharing
Next, each participant shares one idea at a time in turn, without interruption or critique. This structured format ensures quieter members get heard just as much as more vocal ones. The facilitator records every idea as it's shared — numbering them for easy reference later — while preserving the original wording so nothing gets lost or reinterpreted in the moment.
Step 4: Discuss and Refine Ideas
With every idea now visible to the group, the team works through each one to clarify meaning and strengthen its practicality. Open-ended prompts like "how could this work in practice?" help deepen the discussion, and reframing pushback as "yes, and..." instead of "yes, but..." keeps the conversation constructive. This is also the point where overlapping or similar ideas get merged into stronger, combined concepts — though it's worth checking with the original contributor before folding their idea into someone else's.
Step 5: Vote and Prioritise
Finally, the group ranks the refined ideas through a simple point-based voting system — assigning higher scores to preferred options. For smaller idea sets, this might mean rating each option 1–5; for larger sets, narrowing down to a shortlist of the top five before scoring in detail. Once everyone has voted independently, the scores are tallied to reveal the group's collective priority — with a quick tie-breaker discussion or re-vote if needed.
When to use the Nominal Group Technique?
Even though the technique is helpful in generating ideas, there are some specific conditions during which the technique will be effective. Take a look at the conditions:
Unequal Participation
If the facilitator finds that some team members dominate the discussions while others remain quiet, NGT can be used to create involvement among all team members. This method ensures the equality of participation.
New Teams
NGT can be handy if the team is newly formed to improve the coordination, and members need to know each other's perspectives. This can remove the communication barrier between the team members.
Controversial Topics
When discussing sensitive issues where strong opinions might clash.
Idea generation
When a large number of creative solutions are needed for a problem.
Individual reflection is needed when some members benefit from taking time to think through ideas independently.
Benefit of Using the Nominal Group Technique
Using NGT has a range of benefits for project management. Let me explain the significant benefits:
Balanced Participation
Cooperation within the team can help complete the project on time. This NGT technique helps all members to get an equal chance while sharing their ideas. This process eliminates the dominancy within the team and also promotes fairness.
Encourages Diverse Perspectives
The chance of getting different ideas is an outstanding benefit of the technique. Imagine getting different ideas will reduce the process involved in the project. The variations can reduce the risk involved or act as an alternative method during any hindrance.
Structured Approach
The nominal group technique is a structured process, and it helps all members stay focused on the output and process involved. This also avoids the chance of getting out of the discussions.
Prioritization
The team jointly evaluates the ideas given by the group members and finds the best idea to bring out the output with the best quality and reduce the time involved in the process.
Time Reduction
Since the NGT method allows the team members to analyze the ideas before execution, the risks involved are detected before execution. This reduces the time involved in risk mitigation. The brainstorming sessions help find the shortest method to proceed with the process and reduce the time involved.
The benefit of using the nominal group technique is that it is vital among the project team.
What Are the Disadvantages of the Nominal Group Technique?
While the Nominal Group Technique (NGT) is a widely used method for structured group decision-making, it comes with several notable limitations worth weighing before choosing it.
Requires a Trained Facilitator
NGT depends heavily on skilled facilitation to keep the process fair and moving smoothly through each stage. Without someone experienced guiding the session, the structured format can break down — making this a real accessibility barrier for teams without access to trained facilitators.
Limited to One Problem at a Time
NGT is fairly rigid in scope — it's designed to address a single, focused question per session rather than exploring multiple issues simultaneously. If a team needs to work through several interconnected problems, this often means running multiple separate sessions instead of one comprehensive discussion.
Can Still Encourage Conformity
Despite being built to reduce groupthink, NGT doesn't fully eliminate social pressure — some participants may still feel inclined to align with the emerging group consensus during the discussion and voting phases, even after contributing independently at the start.
Not Ideal for Large Groups
The technique works best with smaller groups, generally in the range of 6–10 to about 20 participants. Beyond that, the round-robin sharing and voting stages become unwieldy and time-consuming, undermining the structured efficiency NGT is supposed to offer.
Time-Intensive
Between silent idea generation, round-robin sharing, discussion, and voting, NGT sessions can run long — particularly as group size grows. This makes it a poor fit for situations where a quick decision is needed.
Limits Spontaneity and Real-Time Idea-Building
Because ideas are generated silently and individually before any discussion happens, NGT restricts the kind of organic back-and-forth that sparks new ideas in freeform brainstorming. This can mean missing out on ideas that only emerge through live, collaborative exchange.
Requires In-Person or Synchronous Participation
Traditionally, NGT requires participants to be present together at the same time, which can be difficult to coordinate — especially across distributed or remote teams — and may limit who's able to attend.
Surface-Level Exploration of Complex Topics
Because the process is built around generating and ranking ideas relatively quickly, it doesn't always allow for the kind of deep, extended analysis that highly complex or nuanced problems might require.
Ideas May Be Judged by Source, Not Merit
Without full anonymity in the sharing and discussion phases, there's some risk that ideas get evaluated based on who proposed them rather than on their actual quality — undermining part of NGT's original purpose.
Nominal Group Technique Example
A team lead wants to know why weekly meetings feel unproductive, without letting the most vocal team members dominate the discussion.
Step 1 (Silent Ideas): Each person privately writes down one or two reasons — e.g., "meetings run too long," "no clear agenda," "too many people attend," "discussions go off-topic."
Step 2 (Round-Robin Sharing): Each person shares their ideas one at a time, with no debate yet, while the facilitator lists them on a board.
Step 3 (Voting): Everyone ranks their top 3 choices, giving 3 points to their top pick, 2 to their second, and 1 to their third.
How is the Nominal Group Technique Directly Connected to the PMP Course?
To get outstanding ideas as output from the meeting and proper handling of the group members, knowledge and experience on NGT are required. Knowledge of NGT can be gained during the PMP ccourse because of the following connections:
PMBOK Guide
The process in the PMBOK guide is used to frame the PMP course. The nominal group technique is mentioned in the PMBOK guide, and is approved by the Project Management Institute. The methods mentioned in the PMBOK should be used for better management.
Decision-making process
NGT is a structured approach to group decision-making, allowing project teams to collectively identify, discuss, and prioritize essential issues or solutions, which is a critical aspect of project management.
Requirement gathering
One common application of NGT in project management is during the requirement-gathering phase, where it can ensure all stakeholders contribute their ideas and perspectives.
Diverse viewpoints
NGT helps mitigate the issue of dominant voices in a group by enabling each participant to generate ideas individually. After that, everyone should share them with the group, leading to a more comprehensive consideration of different perspectives.
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Points to Consider in Nominal Group Technique Definition
However, the NGT is more helpful for the management, but there are some considerations to remember. Knowing this consideration will help to get the maximum output from the Nominal group technique
Group Composition
If the team members are involved with diverse members from relevant topic expertise, their ideas and perspectives will be increased. The experience will improve the quality of the ideas.
Recruitment and Sampling
NGT can be conducted with purposive employed participants who can contribute and will likely deliver valuable insights relevant to the research question.
Facilitator Role
The facilitator prevails over NGT, and their vital role is managing the process and ensuring the equal participation of team members. They must take care of or prevent any individual from dominating the session.
Individual idea Generation
The session encourages silent brainstorming to avoid ideas influenced by others. This process can generate unique ideas.
Discussion and Clarification
A facilitator of the discussion should allow a lively discussion that helps in clarification and share ideas. It is also mandatory to oversee and maintain the discussion on the topic. The team must be drawn out of debate whenever it leaves the topic.
Final Thoughts
The nominal group technique is considered as an asset for project management professionals. If you aim to enhance team collaboration and decision-making then, this technique promotes equal participation of team members and diverse ideas. This technique makes sure that every team member contributes to solutions.
This structured approach is to make a focused and efficient discussion, allowing teams to prioritize ideas. The PMP certification course can provide you with understanding of this technique with all techniques are covered in curriculum. Equip your project manager skills to handle the complex projects. Use such a technique to significantly enhance your team's performance and project outcomes.
FAQs
How many people are needed for a Nominal Group Technique session?
NGT typically works best with small groups of about 6–10 participants, though it can be adapted for anywhere from 4 to 20 people. Beyond that range, the round-robin sharing and voting stages become slow and harder to manage.
How long does a Nominal Group Technique session usually take?
Most sessions run between 1 to 2 hours, depending on group size and the complexity of the problem being discussed. Larger groups or more nuanced topics naturally extend the time needed for sharing, discussion, and voting.
Can Nominal Group Technique be used for virtual or remote teams?
Yes, though it was traditionally designed for in-person sessions. With digital whiteboards, shared documents, or video conferencing tools, remote teams can still run the silent idea generation, round-robin sharing, and voting phases effectively.
How is NGT different from regular brainstorming?
Regular brainstorming is open and freeform, letting ideas build off each other in real time — which can let louder voices dominate. NGT separates idea generation (done silently and individually) from discussion, ensuring everyone contributes before the group discussion even begins.
What happens if there's a tie during the voting stage in NGT?
When two or more ideas receive the same score, the facilitator typically opens a brief discussion or holds a quick re-vote focused only on the tied options, helping the group reach a clear final decision without restarting the entire process.
