Evoking the Intelligence of Groups for Making Wise Decisions

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Evoking the Intelligence of Groups for Making
Wise Decisions

• Susan Eliot
• Group Wisdom
• www.group-wisdom.com

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Why We Group

• Two heads are better than one.
• Shared responsibility lessons the load.
• Other people get me thinking.
• Brainstorming is fun.
• Its good to be inclusive.
• Were social creatures by nature.

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What We Get From Groups

• Answers
• Insights
• Solutions
• Decisions
• Direction
• Confusion
• Delay
• Conformity

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In Support of Groups

• Diverse perspectives create wise decisions.
• Groups outsmart individuals.
• People stimulate each others thinking.
• It can be dangerous to only ask the expert.
• People close to the problem can come up with the
  best solutions.

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Wisdom of Crowds

• James Surowiecki
• The Wisdom of Crowds Why The Many Are Smarter
  Than The Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes
  Business, Economies, Societies, and Nations
• An intelligent groupproduces collective
  judgments that represent not what any one person
  in the group thinks but rather, in some sense,
  what they all think.

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Power of Diversity

• Scott E. Page
• The Difference How the Power of Diversity
  Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and
  Societies
• "Our individual heads contain only so many
  neurons and axons. Collectively we face no such
  constraint. We possess incredible capacity to
  think differently. These differences can provide
  the seeds of innovation, progress, and
  understanding."

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Not Any Group Will Do

• Smart groups have rules.
• Smart groups are structured.
• More talking is not always better.
• Harmony is not the goal.
• Composition counts.

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The Four Conditions of Smart Groups

• Diverse A wide degree of knowledge and insight
  is evident among group members.
• Independent Members think and act independently
  of each other.
• Decentralized Group members are close to the
  problem.
• Aggregation Opinions are systematically,
  objectively, and verifiably summarized.

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Diverse Thinking

• Different possibilities
• Different categories and classifications
• Different intellectual tools
• Different cause and effect associations

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Independence

• Best decisions come from disagreement and
  divergence.
• Independence generates fresh information.
• Independence keeps mistakes and bad ideas from
  becoming correlated into one irrational decision.

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Decentralization

• Those closest to the problem usually generate the
  best the solutions.
• Its important to uncover tacit knowledge.

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Aggregation

• Systematic, unbiased synthesis.
• Removes the filters.
• Considers all comments, thoughts, and opinions.
• Reveals the groups collective brain and
  composite wisdom.
• An alchemical process that produces group gold.

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Group Think

• Faulty thinking and decision-making.
• Happens when individuals suppress true feelings
  and unpopular opinions in order to maintain group
  harmony.
• Personal and political connections exponentially
  influence group members.
• Ironically, thinking for oneself increases the
  collective wisdom of the group.

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Smart Group Benefits

• Accurate and reliable data
• Data-driven decisions
• Informed direction
• Evaluation of program effectiveness
• Quality improvement
• Fair
• Respectful
• Utilization focused
• Best thinking

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Uses of Smart Groups

• Program planning
• Needs assessment
• Project design
• Problem-solving
• Generating new ideas
• Developing policy

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Types of Groups

• Decision Informing
• Focus groups
• Research groups
• Decision Making
• Delphi groups
• Nominal groups

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Focus Groups

• Small group 6 - 10
• Skilled facilitator
• Open-ended, well-crafted questions lt10
• Accepting confidential environment
• Generates unlimited ideas, thoughts, opinions
• Formats live, phone, video-conferencing
• Minimum of three groups per topic
• Systematic and objective analysis
• Data categories, quotes, overarching themes

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Focus Groups

• Advantages
• Uncovers feelings, attitudes, insights,
  perceptions
• Reveals underlying motivations/drivers
• Allows for in-depth probing and clarification
• Disadvantages
• Recruitment challenges
• Analysis is time consuming
• Requires a skilled facilitator
• Reduced control

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Focus Groups

• Uses
• Program development
• Program evaluation
• Outcome measurement
• Policy design
• Social marketing

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Focus Groups

• Examples
• Over-regulation and legal fear in public schools
• Inadequate weight gain during pregnancy
• Inclusivity in the workplace

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Research Groups

• Focus group parameters customized to study
• Emergent focus groups (David Morgan, PhD)
• Allow for unanticipated topics
• Questions can change participants can change
  both can change
• Repeat focus groups
• Reconvene same group
• Reflection, homework, research in between
• Intense and continuous discussion

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Research Groups

• Advantages
• Flexibility
• Efficiency
• New knowledge
• Disadvantages
• Requires academic consultation
• Potential biases
• Flexibility

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Research Groups

• Uses
• Theory development
• Theory testing
• New idea generation
• Longitudinal studies

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Research Groups

• Example
• Trans-theoretical model (James Prochaska)
  Flossers and non-flossers

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Delphi Groups

• Consensus-building
• Size average of 20
• Group composition high-level decision-makers,
  experts, researchers, key informants
• Format email, fax, or postal mail
• Repetitive inquiry process 3 - 4 cycles
• Responses summarized and shared with participants
  at each cycle
• New questionnaire developed for each cycle
• Final cycle prioritization, recommendations

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Delphi Groups

• Advantages
• Understanding increases from round to round.
• Participants can change their minds.
• Whole group moves as far as possible toward
  meeting requirements and commitment of all.
• Geographically inclusive.
• Analysis is imbedded in the process.
• Disadvantages
• Requires participants to fill out several
  surveys.
• May require several weeks to complete .

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Delphi Groups

• Uses
• Planning
• Problem-solving
• Consensus-building
• Decision-making
• Generating innovative ideas

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Delphi Groups

• Examples
• Multi-jurisdictional planning for animal shelter
  services
• Focus group question design

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Nominal Groups

• Highly structured
• Round robin questioning
• Participants take time to reflect on and write
  out their responses
• Participants share responses, listen to, and are
  stimulated by other respondents
• Analysis begins in the group
• Format in-person, phone, video-conferencing
• Size no more than 12 individuals

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Nominal Groups

• Advantages
• Combines the best of quantitative and qualitative
  methods
• Systematic, comprehensive topic coverage
• Accommodates introverted and extroverted
  personalities
• Allows qualitative responses to be quantified
• Disadvantages
• May stifle creative, open responses
• Intra-group analysis may be premature

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Nominal Groups

• Uses
• Expansion of existing knowledge
• Drilling down on a specific issue
• Setting priorities
• Designing programs
• Establishing recommendations

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Nominal Groups

• Example
• Protocol development Cognitive and behavioral
  changes in hospice patients

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Validity and Reliability

• Inclusion/Exclusion Criteria
• Diversity
• Independence
• Decentralization
• Saturation
• Rigor
• Design
• Collection
• Analysis

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Choosing the Right Group

• What are your goals?
• What would you like to know?
• How much do you already know?
• Should the group make the decision?
• How will you use the information?
• How much time do you have?
• What are the politics/culture?
• How busy and dispersed are participants?
• Whats your budget?

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Getting Started

• Books
• Internet
• Consultants
• Practitioners
• Training courses
• Graduate students
• Internal capacity

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Final Words

• "I would rather try and fail, than succeed at
  doing nothing!" --Tim Brazeal
• "Never doubt the power of a small group of
  committed individuals to change the world.
  Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
  Margaret Mead