Within Six Sigma’s change acceleration process, GRPI (goals, roles and responsibilities, process, and interpersonal skills) is a tool for team development. The GRPI model should be used in the following scenarios:

• When initiating a new team and planning its first steps
• When a team is not working well and it is not clear why

GRPI can be used not only for building high-performing teams, but also for sustaining the high performance of teams in these two additional ways:

1. Mixing concepts of the nominal group technique with the GRPI model
2. Cascading the GRPI model as the Delphi technique

This article highlights the benefits and use of these modified techniques and provides suggestions on which method to use in various business scenarios.

1. GRPI – Base Method

The facilitator typically gathers the team in one room and goes through the GRPI checklist with the members of the team. The objective is to reach consensus on an assessment of the current state of the team for each of the checkpoints, and then decide on the desired state for each of the checkpoints. Table 1 shows an example of this session’s results.

2. GRPI Mixed with Concepts of Nominal Group Technique

Nominal group technique (NGT) is a group method of decision making. It can be used in groups of large sizes while making sure each individual’s opinion is heard. By preventing an individual or individuals from overtaking a discussion and helping less vocal team members to participate, NGT results in the analyses of current and desired states.

This method can be applied in one of two ways: collocated or distributed.

• Co-located: Gathering all participants in a room. In this case, the facilitator can use a symbolic voting system (e.g., raising hands) or distribute paper-based checklist to collect responses on the current and desired states.
• Distributed: If co-location is not possible or not desirable, the facilitator can use a survey to collect responses.

Both of these techniques are an extension of the original GRPI method. These are based on basic aspects of team dynamics and are particularly valuable when one or more of the following dynamics is observed:

• Some group members are much more vocal than others.
• Some group members think better in silence.
• There is concern about some members not participating.
• Anonymity needs to be maintained.

An example of the results of the distributed method on a project with 13 members is shown in Table 2. The numbers in the cells represents the count of responses. As in Table 1, the current state average is highlighted in blue and desired state average is highlighted in green. This chart and method provided insights into the spread of responses and also identified team members who needed more support. For example, there are three team members who need extensive support in understanding the purpose and the outcomes of the project; they rated themselves at level 2 on a scale of 1-10.

3. Cascading GRPI as the Delphi Technique

The Delphi technique stems from the idea that decisions from an organized group of individuals are more accurate than those from unstructured groups.

A panel of “experts” answers questions in two or more rounds. After each round, a facilitator provides an anonymous summary of the experts’ previous forecast and their reasons for such answers. The experts may revise their earlier answers in light of the other replies, which is expected to help the group agree to the “correct” answer.

In GRPI, this method is particularly useful when team members can tend to stick to their own views and are not inclined to accept other ideas.

In this Delphi/GRPI combination method, GRPI is enhanced by collecting qualitative responses. For example, in addition to asking team members to rate the current and desired states, ask them to provide their thoughts on the current state (e.g., what is the purpose and outcome of this project, what are our goals and deliverables, where can you find up-to-date information on goals) and what can help them get to the desired state. Collecting this qualitative data helps to better understand the current state. Consider using those responses to use in a follow-up GRPI survey (within a week’s time). This helps to quickly improve the current-state understanding of the team. The second round of GRPI will reflect increased understanding of the current state and a narrow spread (more responses near the center).

Summary

By leveraging NGT and the Delphi technique, the GRPI model can be enhanced to:

• Provide more insight into team dynamics (range estimate vs. point estimate).
• Consider input from all team members.
• Rapidly improve the current state of team performance.
• Help sustain the high performance of the teams.