Six Sigma Black Belt Certified Practice Exam

The Nominal Group Technique is particularly effective for generating and prioritizing options in situations involving controversial issues. This structured process allows participants to individually think of ideas and then share them in a round-robin format, encouraging equal participation while minimizing the influence of dominant personalities. After the ideas are collected, each participant ranks the options, which helps to identify a clear consensus on priorities.

This technique is beneficial in contentious discussions as it allows for each team member's voice to be heard without the immediate pressure of group dynamics, which can sometimes lead to biases or conflict. The anonymity in ranking also helps to foster a more objective assessment of ideas, leading to prioritization based on merit rather than group consensus alone, which can be swayed by strong opinions.

In contrast, brainstorming typically relies on open discussion, often leading to louder voices overshadowing quieter team members, which might not yield a fair representation of views. Affinity diagrams are useful for organizing ideas after they have been generated, but they do not focus on the prioritization process itself, especially in a controversial setting. The 5 whys technique is primarily a root cause analysis tool and does not facilitate the generation or ranking of options, making it less suitable for this context.