- Advertise group meeting of 3 to 4 hours.
- Select participants to ensure a mix of interests/community groups/social levels/age/gender, etcetera.
- Hire facilitator skilled in nominal group meeting process. Success of the process depends on thorough preparation by the facilitator.
- Leaders should clarify the questions to be asked, considering what key information they need. Pretest the question before the meeting. Remember, global questions stimulate global answers. Emotional (likes/dislikes, etc.) information must be asked for directly.
- For larger groups, organise into subgroups (seven to nine people) on the same or different topics, depending on the range of issues.
- The facilitator should follow the full step-by-step process, which can include the silent generation and balloting of ideas used strategically in a wide variety of situations and taking relatively little time, eg, for quick agenda setting.
- Choose from the following steps, and follow the process (see: http://128.143.238.20/services/CSA/nominal.htm for detailed instructions):
- Silent generation of ideas in writing (10 - 20 minutes)
- Recorded round-robin listing of ideas on chart (20 - 40 minutes).
- A very brief discussion and clarification of each idea on the chart (20 - 40 minutes).
- Preliminary vote on priorities: silent, independent (10 minutes).
- Meeting break
- Discussion of the preliminary vote (20-40 minutes).
- Final vote on priorities: silent independent (10 minutes).
- Listing and agreement on prioritized items.