The Clinical Informatics team at Acme Healthcare Corporation has been tasked with creating and executing a training plan for an implementation of a HIPAA-compliant messaging system, entity-wide. The implementation is scheduled to occur within the next 60 days. The Informatics team is comprised of Alex, Bob, Julie, Frank, and Jaclyn. Alex and Frank have been working together for the last seven years and are considered senior trainers. A couple of days after management assigned this project to the team, Alex took the initiative and coordinated a Zoom meeting to discuss the next steps. At the start of the meeting, Frank informed the team that he had already created a training plan and that it is ready to be reviewed and approved by leadership. Alex informed the team that he is in support of the training plan. The rest of the team appeared to be delighted by the news and agreed with Frank's approach, however, Bob was not. Bob feels the team should have discussed and agreed on the proposed training plan as a group, but since Bob recently joined the team, he didn't express his concern to avoid conflict.

QUESTIONS

1. Define groupthink and discuss the symptoms of groupthink present in the case. Which method of reducing group think do you suggest Bob might use to combat the problem?
2. What are three group decision rules the team might use in place of consensus in their efforts to ensure better decision-making and recommend the one the team should use.