Learning Activity 11-5: Weighted and Unweighted Selection Criteria

GOALS

The goal for this activity is to apply weighted and unweighted scoring methods to selecting an item from a group of possible choices and to practice team decision making.

MATERIALS

• Training Instrument 12-1: Weighted Selection Criteria

• Training Instrument 12-2: Unweighted Selection Criteria

• PowerPoint slides 9-32 through 9-34

• plain paper

• flipchart paper.

TIME

• approximately 15 minutes

INSTRUCTIONS

Distribute the two training instruments and tell teams that in this exercise they have been asked to select a location for the next International Project Management Summit.

Important: The steps below should be performed in the order indicated.

1. They are to first come up with four or five criteria for selecting the conference site.

2. They then are to assign weights on a scale from 1 to 5 for each of their criteria, with the higher number always the more desirable.

3. Next have each team brainstorm five candidate cities and jot them on a piece of paper.

4. Next have each team pass their list on to the next team clockwise around the room.

5. Each team will then evaluate the five cities on the list they receive against the criteria that they themselves established in steps 1 and 2.

6. They then should transfer their grids to flipchart pages for sharing with the entire group.

Debrief the participants by asking what advantage, if any, there was in determining the criteria ahead of time. Also, see if any teams wound up with different selections in working with the unweighted selection model versus the weighted model.