Decision making techniques 3: Ranking

Reference cards

When to use

Use this to make a final decision of what to focus on. Works well in small or medium to groups.

Method

1. Write all the options on seperate pieces of paper. Repeat the process so you have as many sets of options as participants.
2. Remind the group what you’re trying to decide and what the important criteria
3. Let each participant individually arrange the ideas in order of preference.
4. Then each participant presents their ranking to the
5. Finally, as a group, make a final ranking.

Tips

1. In groups of 2 to 5 ask all the participants to rank the options individually.
2. In groups of 6 to 20, split the group into smaller sub-groups of around 3 or 4.
3. You don’t need to rank all the options. Consider wheather ranking the top 5 or top3 would be just as useful.

Example

You’re having a team meeting to discuss your brand tone of voice. You’ve brainstormed lots of options and agreed on an initial 10. Now you want to narrow it down to 5 core values.

You’re a group of 10 people so you split up into 3 groups to reach a consensus of a ranked top 5.

After about 5 minutes when everyone is done, each group presents their ranking and explains why they ranked the items the way they did. Together, you reach a consensus of what the top 5 brand values are.