The planning for the community building session is almost complete. The last details are how to conduct the plenary sessions for sharing information across groups to develop key priorities and themes that will need to be addressed.

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are two sessions that need to be planned. One is to review the work done by intact work teams. In this larger session, the goal is to spot patterns and identify themes that can be used to plan actions. These patterns or themes will come from the stop–continue–start charts developed by each functional group. In this way, not only will the changes that need to happen be identified, but aspects of effective work (those things that work well and should be continued) can also be reinforced.

The external consulting team strongly recommended a “cross-functional, by-level grouping” for the first step. Their aim is to promote understanding of priorities and show how different issues at different levels of the organization can be aligned. The internal consulting team is excited about being the primary facilitators for these sessions. Everyone recognizes that a structured approach will be critical (for timing and to control decision–making inputs). The approach called Nominal Group Technique (NGT) seems to be ideally suited to this task.

You want to prepare yourself for conducting the session. Use the library, Internet, or other resources to research NGT. Because each grouping will be of a differing size, you want to tailor the overall steps of NGT to the situation you will facilitate. To do this, you must create a meeting session plan (a document of 4–5 pages) that will answer the following questions:

• What is the goal of the session?
• How will the nominal group technique be used to achieve this goal?
• How will the members of the team work together (guidelines for effective participation)?
• What specific steps and tasks will be involved in achieving the goal?
• How much time will be allocated to each step or task? What voting mechanism is most appropriate for the size of the group and the specific stage of the process?
• What will the outcome look like? What will the group present to the other levels?

Download a sample format here (attached)

Your assignment is to complete the missing sections (in red) and develop any additional participant materials or instructions to assist the group in completing the task.

Running head: SHORTENED TITLE 1

SHORTENED TITLE 2

Paper Title

Author

Name of the University

Abstract

The abstract is written in block format, meaning that the start of the paragraph is not indented. It begins on the next line following the Abstract heading and should not be more than 250 words. As an undergraduate, it is suggested that you verify the length of the abstract with your instructor (it is usually a FULL paragraph), but a graduate student must adhere to the 120 to 250 word abstract. The Abstract heading should NOT be in bold. All numbers in an abstract should be typed as digits and not as words unless they are at the beginning of a sentence. The abstract is a one-paragraph summary of the most important elements of the paper. This is an example of what an abstract looks like in a paper. Remember, it usually takes a minimum of 5 sentences to make a paragraph. If your paper is too short to warrant an abstract, delete this page and omit the title on the next page.

Title of Paper

The title of the paper is centered on the first line of the third page and is in uppercase and lowercase letters. Do not italicize the title, bold it, or put it in quotes. The introductory paragraph begins on the line following the title of the paper. The entire paper, including the title page, abstract, body, and references, should be double-spaced. The before/after paragraphs spacing should be set on zero and the margins should be one inch.

In order to give proper credit to the ideas and words of others, any outside sources used in the body of the paper must be documented by citing the author(s) and copyright date of the source(s). This is called a citation. Each citation must have a corresponding full source reference on the references page that follows the body of the paper. As noted by Stevens (2008), a signal phrase “signals to the reader that either a direct quote or a paraphrase is about to follow” (p.43). This is an in-text citation. As in this example, when the name of the author is part of the sentence, the year of the publication appears in parentheses directly following the author’s name, e.g., Stevens (2008). When the author of a source is not mentioned in the sentence, both the author and year of publication appear in parentheses (Stevens, 2008). This is a parenthetical in-text citation. If a work has two authors, both authors are cited in each citation of that source. For a citation of a source with two authors, use the last names of both authors separated by an ampersand (&). When no author is listed, use the title. If the title is extremely long, one may shorten it to the first 4 words of the title and place them in quotation marks. If the headings are too long to use in your in-text citation use a shortened version in quotation marks like this: (Lorraine, 2009, “Stock market trends,” para. 56). When no publication date is listed, use the abbreviation n.d., which stands for no date. When a direct quote is taken from a source with page numbers, such as a book, magazine, or newspaper, include the page number as part of the citation. If the quote is fewer than 40 words, it should be enclosed in double quotation marks and should be incorporated into the formal structure of the sentence.

If the quotation that you are using is more than 40 words long, you must use a block quotation. This is a block paragraph. In a block paragraph, you should not use any quotations at all unless they are needed to indicate a quotation within the original text. (“APA Block Quotation,” n.d.) Note: Citations that start with titles are in quotes and the title can be shortened but should also be in quotes to designate that it is a title.

If you have a direct quote but your source does not have page numbers but does give paragraph numbers, then you would give the paragraph number to show where you found your quote. It would look like this: (Franklin, 2009, para. 9). If there are not any page numbers or paragraph numbers but headings are given, then give the heading and the number of the paragraph that follows it. You will need to count the paragraphs yourself since the numbers are not given. That would look like this: (Franklin, 2009, Past Research section, para. 9).

The references section begins on a new page. The heading is centered on the first line of the new page. It is not in bold, not in italics, nor underlined. The references, which are double spaced, have a hanging indent and begin on the line following the references heading. Entries are organized alphabetically by whatever comes first in the reference (author last name or first word of title). Go to the next page to see an example of a reference page.

References

APA block quotation. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.rpi.edu/web/writingcenter /wc_web/school/apa_block_quotation.htm

Cuddy, M. F., & Fisher, E. R. (2010). Investigation of the roles of gas-phase CF2 molecules and F atoms during fluorocarbon plasma processing of Si and ZrO2 substrates. Journal of Applied Physics, 108(3), 033303. doi:10.1063/1.3467776

Stevens, J.R. (2008). The signal phrase. Retrieved from http://www.englishdiscourse.org

/signal.html

NGToutline

CROSS FUNCTIONAL (BY LEVEL) SESSION (for end of day one)

GOAL: Organize themes to discuss with total group that identify what we do
well and what needs to change. Assign priorities to these themes: their

importance at the specific level of organization for which the cross functional

team is composed.

Total time available: 2–2 ½ hours.

Process nominal group technique:
o Describe what NGT is and how it works in general terms. On one page,

create your facilitator notes for what you will say and show to the group to

complete this task.

Present a detailed step-by-step outline—with time frames—for the group to
follow in achieving the overall goal.

o Describe how you would have the team group items together. (One option
would be to use colored markers and have people star like items by color.

Another might be to have people assign common letters to like items

starting a new letter for any new common theme.)

o Based on the choice you made above, would it be an individual task or a
controlled group task? The object is to create as much participation and

sharing of valid information to increase understanding and build

commitment to the overall result.

o These steps will create a list of themes. The following steps will set
priorities for all themes that relate to being targets for change.

o What voting method would you use? You can assign each person a certain
number of ―votes‖ to allocate across the items to set priorities or you can

have each person mark each theme with a number or letter that indicates

the level of the priority—for example, the ABC priority approach or HML

(high, medium, and low priority) or a 1–10 scale where 10 is a key priority

and 1 is a very low priority.

o How do you summarize the results to create the top 3–5 issues to present
to the overall group? Remember, you may need several rounds of ―voting

and discussion‖ to end up with a few key priorities for action. Estimate

how much time each would take and how many rounds you feel are

necessary.