For seven years, bonnie patterson has been a manager at wayne and watson, a legal consultancy firm. a good part of her workday involves holding meetings, and she likes to follow a well-defined schedule. for this reason, members of her team receive the agenda at the beginning of the meeting, followed by some time to contemplate the issue at hand individually. subsequently, the team members present their ideas one after the other, the group discusses them together, and lastly, a ranking is done to choose the most favored idea. this represents the approach of group decision making.