Effectiveness of Brainwriting Techniques: Comparing Nominal Groups to Real Teams

Abstract

Engineering designers need effective and efficient methods for idea generation. This study compares the effectiveness of group idea generation techniques to the combined efforts of individuals working alone with redundant ideas removed, so called "nominal groups". Nominal groups compared to real interacting groups is a standard approach for determine if a group idea generation method can produce better solutions then individuals working alone. This study compares nominal group data to existing data on a series of group idea generation techniques. Results show that groups using rotational viewing and representing their ideas with words & sketches, a hybrid 6-3-5 method, outperform nominal groups in number ideas and have an equal level of quality. This result is in contrast to comparing Brainstorming groups to nominal groups where nominal groups outperform Brainstorming groups. These results indicate that a team can be more effective than individuals working separately.