Teams Shouldn't Need to Reach Consensus

http://www.ctoaas.co/blog/2013/10/24/teams-shouldnt-need-to-reach-consensus/

by craigedmunds • 13 years ago

22 9 13 years ago

dmyler3• 13 years ago

Great writeup. Consensus is important, but total dependence on agreement can water down solutions and lead to gridlock. Plus, settling on a solution (however modified) that one person has advocated from the start helps them own it. So long as mistakes aren't lorded over anyone, this is a great way to help people develop professionally; you learn best from your mistakes, and from the initiatives you spearhead.

JonFish85• 13 years ago

In such ways, let's say there's a team of 10 people working on a product. How do you avoid the "too many cooks spoils the meal" problem? Jane wants things open-source, Reggie wants the problem to be super-simple and will sacrifice features for simplicity, Joe wants infinite configurability... Without someone to over-rule the group and set the definite course, you could spend days/weeks/months along this track. You can make good arguments for any of these things, but there is no real "right" answer after infinite arguing sometimes. It comes down to what is best for the company, and people can disagree on that all the time.

In my (granted, limited) experience, I've preferred having someone set a definite course than have to deal with a group-think version of a decision.

dmyler3• 13 years ago

This is where a mission and values come into play. Leadership sets the tone and provides a framework (people should have input during this process of course), then gets out of the way so its people can make their own decisions inside that model. You make it safer for people to take risks this way, and try something that not everyone might agree upon.

seivan3• 13 years ago

I don't believe in team decisions anymore. I've gotten too jaded. I'll suggest what I think/know is good, and that's it. I won't argument for it.

One person, one vision, hopefully that person with the vision is part of implementation as well so hen can drive it.

Group think or committees don't work.

mathattack• 13 years ago

I'm not to that extreme because you need buy-in to make things work. But.... The problem with group think and committees is that everyone has a veto. The problem then is it is very hard to get out of Pareto Efficient [1] situations where advancing the group has to come at someone's expense. In these cases, someone owning the entire result needs to force the decision.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_efficiency

seivan3• 13 years ago

Thanks for the link, made for good reading.

Teams Shouldn't Need to Reach Consensus

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