THE GROUP IN SOCIETY a book by John Gastil

The Group in Society book cover

Teaching Resources

Chapter 5

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Discussion Questions

1) What do you think is the best size for a task-force type of group? Why?

If you had to assemble a group to plan for a big fund-raising event for your student organization, how many people would you want to be part of your group? What skills would they need to have?
How would your answers to these questions be different if your group was trying to figure out how to encourage high school students to be more civically engaged?
Would your answers change if your group was performing some other task? What does this tell you about the nature of task forces?

2) How important is diversity for successful group work?

In your own experience, when have you found that it was helpful and important to have diverse group members?
What are the challenges of having people from different backgrounds and perspectives in a group?
How should groups go about managing conflict in diverse groups?

3) When is brainstorming useful? Think back to experiences you’ve had using brainstorming techniques. What makes brainstorming more or less successful?

4) What do you think of the suggestions Salazar offers for how groups can stimulate dynamism and creativity? (see p. 87-88)

Inventory group features
Incorporate perturbation to group system
Amplify and extend use of the new feature: What would this look like in your work group for this class? What challenges should groups be prepared for if they choose to follow this process?

Classroom activities

1) Case analysis: IDEO

Show the video “A Deep Dive” to the class asking them to look for evidence of how this innovative design company deals with idea generation and information flow. This approximately 30-minute video was originally broadcast on the television show 60 Minutes in 1999. It has been available for purchase through ABC [Nightline 1999-07-13] and was featured on the IDEO website. It is now also available (in 3 segments) online. See the “customer experience labs” website for more information about IDEO and their innovative approach to brainstorming and design.
http://www.customer-experience-labs.com/2008/10/22/the-video-that-made-ideo-famous-now-available-on-youtube/

Discussion Questions

How well does this group’s idea generation and information sharing processes fit with what you read in this chapter? Where does it deviate?
What did you notice about the roles that people played in this group process? What do you think about the choice that the leaders made at reign in the creative process near the end of the group discussion?
What do you think makes this group successful at generating innovative ideas and making decisions?
When might a “deep dive” process be useful for other groups?

As potential follow-up assignments, instructors could ask students to look up additional information about IDEO. This video was made nearly ten years ago, yet the company is still highly successful in design and has received considerable attention for their approach to facilitating group creativity and design. The CEO, Dave Kelly, has been hired by other companies to foster an organizational culture that encourages creativity and teach employees how to work in groups to create innovative and creative solutions to problems.

2) Nominal Group Technique

This activity assumes that students have had some kind of experience in brainstorming before, but have probably not had as much (or any) experience using NGT. Give student groups a creative problem, such as the example provided below, and ask them to follow the NGT procedures to generate ideas. Make sure each group has appropriate materials available for the NGT process. Instructions provided below are based on information from Sunwolf & Seibold (1999).

Problem

Your group is tasked with creating ideas about how to design a new kind of energy-efficient transportation that would be useful in your town. Be creative and think about as many possible options that you think would be good choices for the needs of your community. (An alternate task could be to design a new product, create a new logo for the school, address a problem that students care about, etc.)

Instructions

Your group should follow the Nominal Group Technique by following the steps below:

Decide on a facilitator for your group. This facilitator is responsible for providing instructions to the group (b-f, below) and making sure that the group follows this process as closely as possible. The facilitator should not be writing down his/her own ideas, but instead should focus on making sure the group process goes well.
Each person should write down as many ideas as they can about the problem. Do not show ideas to other members of the group.
Facilitator will ask group members to each share one of the ideas that they wrote down. Go around the table and let each group member provide one idea. The facilitator should write these ideas down in a place that is visible to all group members (flip chart, central piece of paper, chalk board, etc.). After the group has gone around the table once, go around again as many times as the group wants to get all the ideas that members are willing to share. This process should result in a list of possible ideas.
Group members should privately rank the options that are listed with the rank of #1 being given to the idea they think is the best. Each item should get a ranking.
Facilitator should collect the group members’ ranked lists, and tally the results by adding up the rank numbers for each proposed idea. (So, if an idea was ranked #1 by four different group members and #2 by two members its score would be 1+1+1+1+2+2=8). The proposed idea with the lowest score is the one most preferred by the group.

Ordinarily the facilitator would do this scoring process alone to ensure confidentiality to the group members. But if time is limited for your group, it might be a good idea to have other group members help with the scoring process.

If necessary, limit the options to the top three or four ranked items and repeat steps d and e to find the idea that is most preferred by the group.

Debrief Questions

What did you think of the process used to generate ideas for this group? What was it like to participate in this process?
In what ways is NGT a group, rather than individual, idea generation process?
How is this process different from a typical brainstorming session? What are its strengths and limitations compared to brainstorming?
Would you advocate using this process in the future? Why or why not? If so, would you make any changes to the process?

3) Information Sharing and Diversity

Have students look at the scenario provided in Figure 5.2 and discuss what went wrong with the adequacy of the group’s information sharing. The goal of their analysis should be to identify a way to address this problem in the situation provided in the book and apply their learning to their own group work for this class.

Part 1: Discussion the Scenario

Have students discuss these questions in their groups. Groups can report out to the class by providing one suggestion (question 3 below) and their rationale for why that suggestion would be helpful for the group described in Figure 5.2.

Why are people in groups more likely to provide shared information (things that have already been said and/or are known by other group members too) than they are to provide information that only they know?
How can the embedded systems framework (Figure 5.3) be helpful to groups dealing with inadequate information sharing?
What specific suggestion do you have for the group described in Figure 5.2 to improve their information sharing?

Part 2: Application to your in-class group

Have each student list their answers to the first two questions below. After they have answered these questions, group members should discuss their answers and decide as a group on the answer to question #3. The group should agree to one or two things that they can do to encourage good information sharing. If desired, the group can add these agreements to their group contract (see instructional materials provided for chapter 1) or otherwise use them to help guide future group work.

Think about the group you are working with in this class. What kinds of knowledge, information, or skills do you think you might have that others in your group also share?
What knowledge, information, or skills do you have that are unique (not shared by other group members)?
List three things your group can do to help people share their unique information and skills. Consider both the embedded systems framework and the suggestions you made for the scenario in the textbook in your discussion.