The use of nominal group technique to determine additional support needs for a group of Victorian TAFE managers and senior educators

Abstract

The nominal group technique (NGT) is a structured process to gather information from a group. The technique was first described in 1975 and has since become a widely-used standard to facilitate working groups. The NGT is effective for generating large numbers of creative new ideas and for group priority setting. This paper describes the process of conducting workshops using the NGT with managers and senior educators in a metropolitan TAFE institute in Australia. The primary purpose of the activity was to ascertain what additional support the participants required in a period of intense change. The secondary purpose was to introduce NGT to an organisation that had hitherto not used NGT in formal evaluation of programs or performance. The paper provides an analysis of the data generated during the workshops and discusses the effectiveness of the technique for the participants.