While observing a meeting of a group of architects who have been asked to reduce the time required to produce plans for building, you discover that the group keeps switching topics or issues every few minutes without reaching any decisions about what is causing the problem or what to do. When asked by the group's coordinator, what might you say about what you have observed? You have been asked by your boss to help this group accomplish its assignment.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

You might say something like this: "I noticed that the group switched topics on the average of every two minutes (1). There seems to be little continuity in the discussion, as if few people were listening to others or at least not responding to what had been said before (1). There seemed to be no structure to the meeting, no systematic way to organize talking toward a goal (1). In nearly a hour, no decisions were made about what to do, or about how to decide what to do. It seems to me that the group is avoiding making decisions (1). Maybe no one wants to be influenced by anyone else. I think the group needs to decide why this is happening and what you want to do about that (1), and only then go back to the issue of how to reduce the time required to produce a complete set of drawings (1)." (up to total of 8 points; other recommendations might also be credited)