Twelve tips to optimize group decision-making in medical education: ‘Tipping’ the scales toward wisdom of the crowd and minimizing groupthink

Group decision-making is now common in medical education, often used for decisions that are both complex and high stakes, such as determining whether to promote or remediate a trainee. In this context, it is often assumed that group decision making is superior to that of an individual, resulting in high quality decision outcomes through the pooling of collective knowledge and experience. Yet, while groups can outperform individuals, this is not guaranteed. In fact, groups are vulnerable to several cognitive biases and process issues that individuals are not subject to and these can lead to poor quality decision outcomes if not managed. As educational leaders who participate in group decision-making, we believe it is our responsibility to ensure the quality of these complex and high-stakes decisions. In this article, we discuss both the potential benefits and vulnerabilities of group decision-making by introducing the concepts of wisdom of the crowd and groupthink, respectively. With this foundation, we then offer twelve evidence-based tips that can be easily implemented in educational group decision-making to minimize groupthink and leverage the wisdom of the crowd.