The applied research surfaced core principles, terms, and concepts required for Group Design to be studied, improved, and shared as a professional discipline.

By definition, the primary factor that makes a set of people a group is a shared purpose.
Few can articulate a group's shared purpose. Only the situation that brought them together.
This is problematic because group decision design is a serious game, in game theory terms. The lack of an explicit shared purpose compromises goal setting and fit, reduces natural convergence, and makes it difficult to find their collective optimum.

Group decision designs produce goals and actions. Those actions will impact the 'system' in place around the topic. Groups overestimate their understanding of the scope of a topic and miss vital landscape.

Without good data, good goals and plans are unlikely.
However, good data does not assure good goals and plans.
Data is converted into opinions.
"X is growing at Y%" becomes "Our opinion is that X is growing at Y%" or "Our opinion is that X is growing at Z%, not Y%"
Data is feedstock.
And it only covers 5%-25% of the opinions used to design group goals and plans.

Despite common belief, data is not the primary decision raw material.
Data becomes opinions.
Opinions becomes a decision's declarations.

Alignment is misused with devastating effect.
How a group thinks about an opinion is their likemindedness
How a group acts toward an opinion is their alignment

Alignment is considered a binary Are/Aren't state
No group has ever been aligned
No group will ever be aligned

There has been no common measure of a group's decision quality
Subjective claims and feelings of goodness
Most rational and compelling group designs were false positives

Named after Nobel Prize recipient for Economics, Prof. Thomas Schelling, a group is most prepared for coordinated action when they have found their Schelling Point.
It was previously unknown how to foster that state or measure it's completeness.

There has been no point where a group can validly declare their decision design is done
When the last agenda item has been discussed? When the clock strikes the hour?
The design's quality should be known and the group's readiness to implement it.

There has been no point where a group can validly declare their decision design is done
When the last agenda item has been discussed? When the clock strikes the hour?
The design's quality should be known and the group's readiness to implement it.

These are some of the primitive terms and core concepts enabling leaders and managers to design optimal decisions and move from one group to the next with a shared approach.