What are Group Creativity Techniques

There are several techniques been defined to follow when it comes to requirement gathering phase. (Source: PMBOK 5th Edition) Group Creativity Techniques are few of them. Under this concept, there are few methods mentioned for effective requirement gathering sessions. Few of them are as follows;

Brainstorming

This is same as interviewing, but recommended to use when there are multiple stakeholders sharing multiple ideas with regards to project / product requirements. This is sometimes referred to as a conference techniques due to the participation of multiple stakeholders.

Nominal Group Technique

This method works with brainstorming as a joint process. Once the ideas are generated through a brainstorming session, the brought up ideas / requirements will be analyzed and prioritized based on their value using the nominal group technique.

Delphi Technique

This is known to be a method of reaching the consensus of subject matter experts (SME). The facilitator has to prepare a list of questions that need to be answered by SMEs and shared among them. Once the SMEs receive the questionnaire, they will answer based on their knowledge and experience and share their opinions with the facilitator. Through this technique, it reduces the bias in the information shared since this technique is mostly following the anonymous techniques where only the facilitator will receive the SME opinions.

Idea / Mind Mapping

Mind mapping is a technique which consolidates several opinions collected via brainstorming sessions from individuals and form a central opinion. This mapping view visualizes the different ideas and opinions carried by different stakeholders which follows different deviations from the centralized opinion.

Affinity Diagram

This is another technique that goes toe-to-toe with brainstorming and nominal group techniques. It takes ideas from different individuals and group them under different categories for reviewing and analysis purposes.

Multi-criteria Decision Analysis

Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis technique assigns different criteria for requirement evaluation purpose and rank them with a weighted value. Once the requirements are gathered, they will be rated based on the weighted values assigned to each criteria. This technique is mostly used to evaluate risk levels, uncertainties, valuation and other ideas that can be ranked with regards to the weighted criterion value.