Group Decision-Making Methods

In our professional or social life, we have all faced a situation where we had to decide as a group on what to do. In most cases, the smaller the time size of the group, the shorter is the decision-making process. Also, using the wrong approach can lead to some disastrous results. The outcome of a group decision usually affects the group. That is why it is necessary to put the opinion of the group into perspective. There are a couple of group decisions technique that has been successful in keeping everyone involved and shorten the decision-making process. For this post, we are only going to talk about two of them: the Delphi method and decision trees.

• The Delphi method was released in 1963, 10 years after being used in military defense projects for security purposes (Dalkey and Helmer, 1951). Since then, the method has evolved significantly and has been widely adopted by companies across all industries. It has also been used to support various research purposes. Hsuand Sandford (207b) characterized the Delphi method as an iterative process that consists of subjecting the panelists or experts of a topic to an intensive series of questionnaires and analyzing their feedback until a global consensus is reached. The method in its nature has some limitations as the experts that constitute the group, the size of the group, the number of iterations, reaching a consensus, assessing the consensus. Indeed, making the wrong choices on any of those items can be disastrous for the process and lead to the wrong decisions. 

                                                    fig. 1  Delphi decision procedure

• The decision-trees method is particularly advantageous to predict outcomes to different decisions. It is known as a decision tree because, in its final form, it looks like a tree where the root node is the problem underhand, and it branches out into possible decisions to make to find the optimal decision (fig. 2). This method is highly visual and operates as a type of non-linear mind map to predict how one approach to a problem may turn out as an output. Once all different approaches are properly mapped, the group can adopt a decision with the most beneficial outcomes. This model is very efficient, flexible, and easy to understand, but it can get complexed if you have lots of uncertain outcomes. 

                                                                 fig. 2 Decision-trees model

There are a lot more group decisions methods that have not been listed here such as didactic iteration and pros and cons list. Each of them has some advantages and disadvantages; depending on the problem, some present more advantages than others. These group's decision methods have limitations, some a lot more than others depending on the problem underhand. However, there are ways to optimize each of these processes and adapt them to your research or the need of your company.

References

1. Rabiee, M., Aslani, B., & Rezaei, J. (2021). A decision support system for detecting and handling biased decision-makers in multi criteria group decision-making problems. Expert Systems with Applications, 171, 114597.
2. Ortiz-Urbina, E., González-Pachón, J., & Diaz-Balteiro, L. (2019). Decision-making in forestry: A review of the hybridisation of multiple criteria and group decision-making methods. Forests, 10(5), 375.
3. Alarabiat, A., & Ramos, I. (2019). The Delphi Method in Information Systems Research (2004‑2017). Electronic Journal of Business Research Methods, 17(2), pp86-99.
4. Hsu, C.-C. and Sandford, B.A., 2007a. Minimizing non-response in the Delphi process: How to respond to non-response. Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, 12(17), pp.62–78.
5. Hsu, C.-C. and Sandford, B.A., 2007b. The Delphi technique: making sense of consensus. Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, 12(10), pp.1–8