

Teams Shouldn't Need to Reach Consensus - craigedmunds
http://www.ctoaas.co/blog/2013/10/24/teams-shouldnt-need-to-reach-consensus/

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dmyler
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.

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JonFish85
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.

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dmyler
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.

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RougeFemme
I totally agree with having lively discussion within a framework defined by
the leadership. But it seems that the mission and values are usually at a
pretty high level - so high that they don't necessarily help in coming up with
a single solution. It still seems that someone ??in a non-leadership role??
needs to be empowered to make the final decision - and to know _when_ to make
it. Maybe the framework you're thinking of, while influenced by the higher-
level mission and values, has the "who" and "when" built in. And it certainly
wouldn't have to be the same "who" all the time.

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dmyler
"And it certainly wouldn't have to be the same "who" all the time."

Totally agree. And this is the hard part for leaders -- letting their people
make big decisions, because the mistakes will be attributed _to_ the team
leader, and not their teams. As it should. But great leaders will make that
situation a reality, otherwise you have a bunch of unmotivated people working
for you who will eventually look for a job elsewhere that empowers them to
grow into larger roles.

So leadership has to guide the process, and occasionally just decide. But
hopefully only occasionally.

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seivan
The problem with that process is that it ends up being half-assed.

"Yeah I value your opinion, all of your opinions, I'd like to hear your
ideas... but we're not going to implement any of them. I like to feel good
about being a good leader who listens to my minions. "

or

"Yeah I listened to one of your ten ideas, and it ended up sucking, lets
ignore the facts that that idea had dependencies and contingencies on the
other nine ideas in order to be amazing"

I rather prefer that the leader took a role that dictated the vision of the
product and these days I prefer that particular leader to be the founder
and/or CEO. Also hopefully someone who is part of the implementation
(preferably code).

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seivan
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.

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mathattack
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](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_efficiency)

~~~
seivan
Thanks for the link, made for good reading.

