Integrating nominal group technique and joint application development for improved systems requirements determination

Joint application development (JAD) is a facilitated group technique that can be used in systems requirements determination (SRD); it was designed to encourage team rapport and achieve synergy by leveraging the combined knowledge of participants. JAD has been reported to cure several problems of conventional SRD techniques and shortened development schedules. However, its freely interacting meeting structure may curtail effectiveness by encouraging adverse group-related actions that challenge even the best facilitators. In this study, we integrated JAD and nominal group technique (NGT), a popular group structure that has been used to reduce the effects of negative group dynamics on task-oriented objectives. We examined this integrated structure in a laboratory experiment to determine whether it could alleviate the problems that JAD has experienced during SRD. The results suggest that the integrated approach outperformed JAD in our test environment; it was as efficient as JAD alone and it appeared to contribute to the reduction of the need for great facilitation skills in group decision-making.