Table 1

Characteristics of various consensus development methods (from Murphy et al. [12])
Consensus development method
 Mailed questionnaires
 Private decisions elicited
 Formal feedback of group choices
 Face-to-face contact
 Interaction structured
 Aggregation method
Informal
 No
 No
 No
 Yes
 No
 Implicit
Delphi method
 Yes
 Yes
 Yes
 No
 Yes
 Explicit
NGT
 No
 Yes
 Yes
 Yes
 Yes
 Explicit
RAND version
 Yes
 Yes
 Yes
 Yes
 Yes
 Explicit
Consensus development conference
 No
 No
 No
 Yes
 No
 Implicit
Other methods
Staticised group
 No
 Yes
 No
 No
 -
 Explicit
Social judgement analysis
 No
 Yes
 Yes
 Yes
 No
 Implicit
Structured discussion
 No
 No
 No
 Yes
 Yes
 Implicit

Fretheim et al. Health Research Policy and Systems 2006 4:17   doi:10.1186/1478-4505-4-17