Difference between Nominal Group Technique and Multicriteria Decision Analysis

[seema.sonkiya]

Got the following question -

Kindly need answer for the below question -

Difference between nominal and multi decision group technique ?


Here is my response - I believe you are asking about the difference between nominal group and multicriteria decision analysis; let me know if my understanding is not correct -

I am explaining the difference between - the Nominal Group Technique and Multicriteria Decision Analysis.

Nominal Group Technique: According to PMBOK, the Nominal Group is a technique that enhances brainstorming with a voting process to rank the most useful ideas for further brainstorming for prioritization.

So in the nominal group technique, you brainstorm and then prioritize and vote to choose the most useful ideas. In summary, it helps rank a group of items like risk, etc.


For example, the following could be steps to do the Nominal Group technique:
1. Facilitator presents the problem and invites each Participant to write down or discuss their ideas to solve the problem
2. Afterwards, the facilitator may ask each to present those ideas orally or write on the board.
3. Facilitator involves the group to discuss these ideas simultaneously. Discussion is usually unstructured and spontaneous (Brainstorming: One idea is to build up from other ideas)
4. After brainstorming ideas, the facilitator can ask to vote to support their choice ideas without fear. The idea receiving the most votes is adopted and implemented.

Multi-Criteria Decision Making - According to the PMBOK -
The Multicriteria Decision analysis technique uses a decision matrix to provide a systematic analytical approach to evaluate the requested changes according to a set of predefined criteria.

So alternatives are rated on different criteria, which helps in ranking. Let's discuss with an example -
You need to choose one from two options based on criteria like - cost, reliability, availability, and other variables. You can create a matrix to do a statistical calculation to see the most suitable option.

[rashmi3]

Thanks Seema :)