This article sets forth a group process approach useful for practicing administrators charged with a program development task. More specifically, meeting formats are suggested for involving the following critical reference groups in successive phases of program development: (1) clients (consumers or users) and first-line staff, in problem exploration; (2) external resource people and internal specialists, in knowledge exploration; (3) key administrators and resource controllers, in priority development and local adaptation; (4) organizational staff, in program proposal building; and (5) all constituencies, in final approval and evaluation designs. The meeting formats were suggested by contemporary small-group theory; the sequencing of the involvement of reference groups came from studies of community planning.

This paper presents a group process for conducting an exploration of the qualitative and quantitative elements, patterns and total structure of a health care problem under preliminary investigation. Reasons for employing the nominal group process as a pilot research instrument are given. The authors emphasize that it is appropriate for some problems but not for others.The Nominal Group as a Research Instrument for ExploratoryHealth Studies

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